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LECTURES 


c 


ON  THE 


HISTORY  OF  LITERATURE 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN. 


FROM  THE  GERMAN  OF 


FREDERICK    SCHLEGEL. 


NEW  YORK: 
J.  &  H.  G.  LANGLEY,  57  CHATHAM  STREET. 

M  DCCC  XLI. 


Stereotyped  by  Smith  and  Wright,  216  William  Street. 


INTRODUCTION 

BY  THE 

AMERICAN    EDITOR. 

In  an  age  like  the  present,  rapidly  attaining  to  the 
highest  degree  of  polished  refinement,  the  cultivation 
of  the  liberal  sciences,  and  all  that  tends  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  human  happiness,  are  justly  esteemed 
of  paramount  value.  Thus  the  literature  of  our  time 
is  commensurate  vv^ith  the  universality  of  education ; 
while  a  species  of  insatiable  curiosity  is  observable 
among  all  classes,  busied  in  contemplating  the  pro- 
gressive movements  of  social  improvement  displayed 
in  the  gradual  unfolding  of  science  and  art,  and  in 
tracing  the  successive  transitions  of  mankind,  from 
the  early  buddings  of  a  state  of  comparative  barba- 
rism, dow^n  to  the  rich  harvest  of  its  accumulated  re- 
sources, in  an  age  of  its  highest  civilization  and  refine- 
ment. Important  and  instructive  as  is  the  page  of 
history,  the  records  of  Hterature,  —  its  rise,  pro- 
gress, and  pecuHarities  become  no  less  so  ;  they  form 
indeed,  by  far,  its  most  attractive  feature.  At  once  . 
the  result  of  opulence,  and  refined  cultivation,  literary 
pursuits,  become  also  the  means  of  increasing  and 
perpetuating  the  civilization  from  which  they  origin- 
ate ;  while  they  possess  an  all-pervading,  powerful 
moral  agency,  and  a  close  connexion  with  human 
happiness  and  social  improvement ;  and  hence  it  be- 
comes associated  with  all  that  concerns  the  fame,  the 
freedom  and  the  felicity  of  a  people.  "  There,  is  no 
portion  of  history,"  says  the  talented  author  of 
Rasselas  "  so  generally  useful  as  that  which  relates 


4^^^ 


J 


IV  INTRODUCTION. 

to  the  progress  of  the  human  mind, — the  gradual  im- 
provement of  reason, — the  successive  advances  of 
science, — the  vicissitudes  of  learning  and  ignorance, 
which  are  the  light  and  darkness  of  thinking  beings, 
— the  extinction  and  resuscitation  of  arts,  and  the 
revolution  of  the  intellectual  vs^orld."  While,  there- 
fore, it  is  true  that  such  speculations  are  perfectly  in 
accordance  with  natural  taste, — few  subjects  having 
become  indeed  a  more  favourite  pursuit  among  a 
people  of  any  intellectual  advancement, — it  is  equally 
certain,  that  fewer  still  possess  higher  claims  upon  our 
consideration  and  regard.  In  contemplating  the  vari- 
ous struggles,  and  final  triumphs  of  modern  achieve- 
ments over  the  dark  ignorance,  superstition  and  pre- 
judices of  former  times, — the  emancipation  of  the  in- 
tellect from  the  thraldom  of  tyranny  and  error, — we 
may  not  only  learn  to  estimate  the  extent  of  its 
gigantic  powers ;  but  we  also  acquire  a  store  of 
knowledge  unsupplied  by  any  other  source,  in  the 
recorded  experience  of  the  world,  which  must  ever 
be  regarded  of  incalculable  importance.  By  con- 
trasting the  manners,  customs,  and  opinions  of  ear- 
lier ages,  with  those  of  our  own  times,  we  are  pre- 
sented with  many  new  and  instructive  aspects  of 
human  nature,  which,  in  a  well-regulated  mind,  can- 
not fail  to  awaken  a  train  of  emotions  and  feelings, 
fraught  with  lessons  of  wisdom  and  instruction,  and 
with  which,  but  for  this  cause,  we  should  perhaps,  have 
ever  remained  utterly  unacquainted  ;  for  it  teaches 
us  not  only  to  affix  a  just  estimate  on  our  own  ac- 
quisitions, but  encourages  us  to  foster  and  cherish  in 
others  that  mental  cultivation  which  is  so  intimately 
involved  with  the  existence  and  exercise  of  every 
social  virtue.  Not  to  the  man  of  science,  or  the 
philosophic  inquirer  into  the  abstract  relations  of 
cause  and  effect  alone,  does  this  subject  belong,  it 
equally  addresses  itself  to  every  rational  and  reflect- 
ing mind.     The  influence  of  literature,  however,  fur- 


INTRODUCTION. 


ther  extends  to  the  civil  and  political  affairs  of  a 
country,  not  only  by  its  superinducing  the  establish- 
ment of  public  and  private  seminaries  of  learning,  in 
the  vi^ide  diffusion  of  general  education,  or  in  impart- 
ing to  a  people,  the  power  of  appreciating  the  full 
immunities  and  tendencies  of  their  social  and  politi- 
cal institutions.  "  The  advancement  of  literature," 
says  Madame  de  Stael,  "  is  necessary  to  the  establish- 
ment and  conservation  of  liberty.  It  is  manifest  that 
the  light  of  knowledge,  is  more  indispensably  neces- 
sary in  a  country,  where  all  the  citizens  who  inhabit 
it,  have  a  more  immediate  influence  on  the  character 
and  conduct  of  the  government ;  and  equally  true  it 
is,  that  political  equality,  a  principle  essentially  inhe- 
rent in  every  philosophical  institution,  cannot  possibly 
exist,  unless  you  class  the  differences  of  education 
with  as  minute  an  attention,  as  was  exerted  in  feudal 
times,  to  maintain  arbitrary  distinctions.  Purity  of 
language,  dignity  of  expression,  that  bespeak  and 
picture  out  the  nobleness  of  the  soul,  are  more  emi- 
nently necessary  in  a  state  that  is  settled  on  a  demo- 
cratic basis."  This  high  responsibility  has  not  been 
disregarded  by  the  people  of  the  United  States ;  nor 
has  the  fact  passed  unheeded  by  those  who  have  ex- 
pounded the  great  principles  and  genius  of  our  insti- 
tutions. Among  others,  we  find  this  subject  has  re- 
ceived its  meed  of  praise,  from  that  profound  and 
philosophic  analyst  De  Tocqueville,  who  says,  "  I  do 
not  believe  there  is  a  country  in  the  world,  where  in 
proportion  to  the  population,  there  are  so  few  un- 
instructed,  as  in  America."  Not  only  is  an  acquaint- 
ance with  literature  thus  important  to  the  interests  of 
a  community  possessing  liberal  institutions ;  its  ad- 
vantages will  be  scarcely  less  adapted  to  the  uni- 
versal wants  of  mankind.  The  desire  of  acquiring 
knowledge  being  an  inherent  principle,  every  facility 
tending  to  its  development  should  be  regarded  as  of 
the  highest  value.     Yet  institutions  and  laws,  how- 

1* 


ti  INTRODUCTION. 

ever  admirably  constructed,  form  but  the  mere  boun- 
daries of  civilized  life,  whose  animating  principle  is 
to  be  found  in  the  moral  agency  of  the  human  intel- 
lect. To  impart  its  first  impulses,  is  the  province  of 
popular  instruction,  and  this  again  of  national  ad- 
vancement. As  it  has  been  said  of  virtue,  so  it 
may  with  equal  propriety  be  affirmed  of  knowledge, 
that  it  is  its  own  reward.  They  who  have  once 
tasted  of  its  pure  fountains  acquire  with  renewed 
relish  the  desire  for  its  refi-eshing  and  invigorating 
streams.  The  pleasures  to  be  derived  from  literary 
and  scientific  pursuits,  are  as  anomalous  in  their  cha- 
racter, as  they  are  intrinsic  and  inappreciable  in  their 
kind.  To  the  well-cultivated  mind,  the  loneliest 
solitudes  become  peopled  with  the  bright  images  of 
creative  fancy,  while  in  the  seclusive  cogitations  of  the 
study,  are  laid  bare  the  exhaustless  resources  of  wis- 
dom, in  the  undeveloped  mysteries  of  science  and 
philosophy  :  and  where  the  vain  sciolist  can  perceive 
but  blank  inanity,  he  discovers  myriads  of  objects 
teeming  with  a  moral  and  intellectual  agency  of 
physical  life. 

Whatever  may  be  urged  against  the  indiscrimi- 
nate dissemination  of  learning,  it  is  at  least  certain, 
that  until  the  natural  bent  and  instinct  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  which  is  directly  opposed  to  that  of  the 
subordinate  orders  of  created  beings,  be  radically 
changed,  no  surer  antidote  can  be  found  than  that 
which  is  supplied  by  mental  discipline  and  educa- 
tion, for  the  correction  of  those  debasing  evils  at- 
tendant on  ignorance  and  stupid  insensibility.  The 
advancement  of  knowledge,  if  conducted  to  judicious 
ends  and  purposes,  cannot  fail  of  producing  the  most 
beneficial  results ;  while  to  those,  who  having  once 
acquired  a  love  of  literary  pursuits,  they  are  equally 
sure  of  proving  an  unceasing  and  delightful  source  of 
entertainment  as  well  as  instruction.  It  is  in  "  the 
sweet  society  of  books,"  we  learn  to  appreciate  and 


INTRODUCTION.  VÜ 

emulate  the  nobleness  of  virtue,  and  to  recoil  with 
aversion  from  the  contamination  of  vice,  —  that 
we  make  diligent  search  after  truth,  carefully  dis- 
criminating it  from  speciousness  and  error,  while  the 
mind  becomes  at  the  same  time  disfranchised  from 
former  prejudices,  in  its  aspirations  after  the  attain- 
ment of  exalted  ideas,  enlarged  sentiments  and  a  ma- 
tured judgment.  In  consulting  the  historic  page,  we 
cannot  fail  to  observe  among  its  luminous  records, 
an  illustrious  name,  in  which  at  least,  some  individual 
virtue  is  not  ennobled.  Here  we  find  emblazoned  the 
dauntless  deeds  of  the  hero  in  battle, — here  the  mas- 
terly developments  of  intellectual  greatness, — again, 
we  discover  the  yet  more  glorious  instances  of  the 
lofty  purity  and  self-sacrificing  labours  of  philan- 
thropy, morality,  and  virtue. 

Such  being  the  important  advantages  derivable  from 
the  study  of  literature,  it  is  with  great  pleasure,  we 
are  enabled  to  introduce  to  the  American  public,  a 
work  so  admirably  designed  and  executed  as  the  pre- 
sent, for  inducing  a  love  of  literary  pursuits.  With  no 
work  of  its  class  are  we  acquainted,  possessing  higher 
excellence,  or  better  adapted  to  fulfil  its  destiny.  Hav- 
ing passed  the  scrutinizing  ordeal  of  critical  censor- 
ship in  the  Old  world,  it  comes  with  accredited  honour, 
and  pre-eminent  claims  to  the  people  of  the  New. 
To  attempt,  therefore,  now  any  discussion  of  its  cha- 
racteristic merits,  or  supposed  defects,  might  justly 
be  deemed,  not  only  hypercrital,  but  a  needless  task. 
We  may  be  allowed  to  add,  in  closing  this  brief  in- 
troduction, that  we  possess  few  works,  not  written 
in  our  own  vernacular,  which  discover  the  ornaments 
of  a  more  polished  rhetoric,  or  one  characterized  by 
greater  felicity  of  expression  and  style  ;  for  which 
we  are  undoubtedly  as  much  indebted  to  the  ability 
of  the   talented   translator,*    (whose  high   standing 

*  This  translation  is  attributed  to  J.  G.  Lockhart,  Esq. 


Till  INTRODUCTION. 

among  the  literati  of  the  age,  is  alone,  a  sufficient 
guarantee  for  his  adequate  accomplishment  of  the 
task,)  as  well  as  to  the  genius  of  the  original,  and  the 
rich  exuberance  of  German  idiom. 

The  present  volume  is  a  reprint  from  the  recent 
improved  Edinburgh  edition,  without  interpolation  or 
omission,  to  which,  however,  being  a  work  of  perma- 
nent value,  it  has  been  deemed  advisable  to  append 
an  original  Index,  with  the  view  of  facilitating  refer- 
ence, and  rendering  it  moi'e  complete  as  a  standard 
synoptical  book  on  all  subjects  connected  with  our 
literary  annals. 


June  20th,  1841. 


CONTE  NTS. 


LECTURE  I. 

PAGE 

Introduction  and  plan  of  the  Work — Influence  of  Literature  on 
life  and  on  the  character  of  Nations — Poetry  of  the  Greeks 
down  to  the  age  of  Sophocles, 1 


LECTURE  II. 

The  later  Literature  of  the  Greeks — Their  Sophists  and  Philo- 
sophers— The  Alexandrian  age       .        .        .        .        .        ,29 


LECTURE  III. 

Retrospect — Influence  of  the  Greeks  on  the  Romans — Sketch  of 
Roman  Literature, 63 


LECTURE  IV. 

Short  duration  of  the  Roman  Literature — New  epoch  under 
Hadrian — Influence  of  the  opinions  of  the  Orientals  on  the 
Philosophy  of  the  West — Mosaic  writings,  poetry  of  the  He- 
brews— Religion  of  the  Persians — Monuments  of  the  Indians 
— Modes  of  interment  among  the  ancient  nations,  ...      92 


LECTURE  V. 

Literature,  opinions,  and  intellectual  habits  of  the  Indians — Re- 
trospect to  Europe, 117 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  VI. 

PAOE 

Influence  of  Christianity  on  the  Roman  language  and  literature 
— Transition  to  the  Northern  nations — Gothic  heroic  poems — 
Odin,  Runic  writings  and  the  Edda — Old  German  poetry — 
The  Nibelungen-lied, 138 


LECTURE  VII. 

Of  the  Middle  Age — Of  the  origin  of  the  modern  European 
languages — Poetry  of  the  Middle  Age — Love  poetry — Char- 
acter of  the  Normans,  and  their  influence  on  the  Chivalrous 
poems — Particularly  those  which  treat  of  Charlemagne,  .     160 


LECTURE  VIII. 

Third  set  of  Chivalrous  poems — Arthur  and  the  Round  Table — 
Influence  of  the  Crusades  and  the  East  on  tITe  Poetry  of  the 
West — Arabic  and  Persian  poems — Ferdusi — Last  re-model- 
ling of  the  Nibelungen-lied — Wolkram  von  Eschenbach,  true 
purpose  of  the  Gothic  architecture — Later  poesy  of  the  Chival- 
rous period — Poem  of  the  Cid, 182 


LECTURE  IX. 

Italian  Literature — Allegorizing  spirit  of  the  middle  age — Rela- 
tion of  Christianity  to  poetry — Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boc- 
caccio— Character  of  the  Italian  art  of  poetry  in  general — 
Modern  Latin  poets,  and  the  evil  consequences  of  their  writ- 
ings— MachiavelU — Great  inventions  and  discoveries  of  the 
fifteenth  century, 203 


LECTURE  X. 

A  few  words  upon  the  Literature  of  the  North  and  East  of 
Europe — Upon  the  scholastic  learning  and  German  mystics  of 
the  middle  age, 226 


CONTENTS.  XI 


LECTURE  XL 

PAGE 

General  remarks  on  the  plailosophy  of  the  times  immediately 
preceding  and  following  the  Reformation  —  Poetry  of  the 
Catholic  nations,  the  Spaniards,  the  Portuguese,  and  the 
Italians — Garcilaiso,  Ercilla,  Camoens,  Tasso,  Guarini,  Mari- 
no, and  Cervantes, 248 


LECTURE  XIL 

Of  Romance  —  Dramatic  poetry  of  the   Spaniards  —  Spenser 
Shakesoeare,  and  Milton — Age  of  Louis  XIV. — The  French 
theatre. 270 


LECTURE  XIIL 

Philosophy  of  the  seventeenth  century — Bacon,  Hugo  Grotius, 
Descartes,  Bossuet,  Pascal — Change  in  the  mode  of  thinking 
— Spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century — Picture  of  the  atheism 
and  revolutionary  spirit  of  the  French, 299 


LECTURE  XIV. 

Lighter  species  of  writing  in  France,  and  imitation  of  the  Eng- 
lish— Fashionable  literature  of  both  countries — Modern  Ro- 
mance— The  prose  of  Buffon  and  Rousseau — Popular  poetry 
in  England — Modern  Italian  theatre — Criticism  and  historical  - 
composition  of  the  English — Sceptical  philosophy — Return  to 
a  better  and  higher  species  of  philosophy  in  France — Bonald 
and  St.  Martin — Sir  William  Jones  and  Burke,     .        .        .    3^ 


LECTURE  XV. 

Retrospect — German  philosophy — Spinosa  and  Leibnitz — Ger- 
man language  and  poetry  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries — Luther,  Hans  Sachs,  Jacob  Böhme — Opitz,  the 
Silesian  school — Corruption  of  taste  after  the  peace  of  West- 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

ptalia;  occasional  poetry — German  poets  of  the  first  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century — Frederick  the  Second;  Klopstock; 
the  Messiad  and  Northern  mythology — The  chivalrous  poems 
of  Wieland — Introduction  of  the  ancient  metres  of  quantity 
into  the  German  language;  defence  of  rhyme  —  Adelung, 
Gottsched,  and  "the  (so  called)  golden  age" — First  genera- 
tion of  the  later  German  literature,  or  "the  period  of  the 
founders," 342 


LECTURE  XVI. 

General  review — Second  Generation — German  criticism — Les- 
sing  and  Herder — Lessing  as  a  philosopher — Freethinking 
and  the  illuminati — The  Emperor  Josepl^the  Second — Char- 
acter of  the  third  generation — The  philosophy  of  Kant — 
Goethe  and  Schiller — Anticipation — Fichte  and  Tieck — True 
character  of  German  htcrature — Conclusion,  ....    363 


LECTURES 


ON  THE 


HISTORY  OF  LITERATURE. 


LECTURE  I. 

INTRODUCTION   AND    PLAN   OF    THE   WORK — INFLUENCE    OF    LITERATURE 

ON     LIFE     AND     ON   THE     CHARACTER    OF    NATIONS POETRY     OF     THE 

GREEKS  DOWN  TO  THE  AGE  OF  SOPHOCLES. 

In  the  following  discourses,  it  is  my  design  to  give  a 
general  view  of  the  development  and  of  the  spirit  of  lite- 
rature among  the  most  illustrious  nations  of  ancient  as 
well  as  of  modern  times ;  hut  my  principal  object  is  to 
represent  literature  as  it  has  exerted  its  influence  on  the 
affairs  of  active  life,  on  the  fate  of  nations,  and  on  the  pro- 
gressive character  of  ages. 

During  the  last  hundred  years,  the  human  mind,  more 
particularly  in  Germany,  has  undergone  a  great,  and,  m 
one  point  of  view  at  least,  a  fortunate  alteration.  Not  that 
the  individual  productions  of  art,  or  inquiries  into  science, 
to  which  this  period  has  given  birth,  are  entitled  to  indis- 
criminate praise,  or  have  attained  equal  success;  but  a 
mighty  change  has  taken  place  in  the  quarter  where  it 
was  most  necessary,  in  the  regard  and  interest  which  the 
world  at  large  bestows  on  literature ;  and  among  us,  above 
all  other  people,  in  the  influence  which  it  has  already 
exerted,  and  is  likely  in  a  much  greater  degree  to  exert 
on  us,  both  as  individuals  and  as  a  nation. 

Our  men  of  letters  formed,  till  of  late,  a  body  altogether 
cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  quite  as  distinct  from 

1 


2  LITERATURE  OF  GERMANY. 

the  society  of  the  higher  orders  as  these  were  from  the 
mass  of  the  people.  Keppler  and  Leibnitz  composed  far 
the  greater  part  of  their  works  in  Latin;  and  Frederick 
of  Prussia,  in  his  turn,  both  of  thinking  and  of  writing, 
was  a  Frenchman.  All  national  recollections,  and  all 
national  feelings,  were  either  abandoned  to  the  common 
people,  who  still  maintained  among  them  some  remnant, 
however  feeble  and  mutilated,  of  the  spirit  of  "  the  good 
old  time ;"  or  formed  in  secret  the  inspiration  and  the  en- 
thusiastic pursuit  of  a  few  poets  and  authors,  who  at  first, 
indeed,  applied  themselves  to  these  objects  in  the  hope  of 
bringing  about  a  new  state  of  things  by  their  means.  So 
long  however,  as  this  was  alone  attempted  by  some  particu- 
lar classes  of  society,  there  could  be  little  chance  that  the 
youthful  enthusiasm  of  their  design  should  be  justified  by 
success,  or  crowned  by  consequences  of  universal  utility. 

During  the  whole  of  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth, 
and  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  this  complete 
separation  between  the  men  of  letters  and  the  people  of 
fashion,  and  between  them  and  the  rest  of  the  nation,  was 
universal  throughout  Germany;  and,  indeed,  these  unna- 
tural distinctions  and  their  necessary  consequences  pro- 
tracted no  inconsiderable  influence  in  particular  quarters, 
long  after  the  general  mind  had  become  sufficiently  pre- 
pared for  the  reception  of  a  new  state  of  things,  and  a 
more  rational  arrangement  of  society. 

The  great  number  of  distinguished  works,  or  at  least 
of  remarkable  and  praiseworthy  attempts,  which,  especi- 
ally after  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  were  per- 
petually making  their  appearance  in  the  German  tongue, 
succeeded,  at  length,  in  attracting  universal  attention,  part- 
ly to  the  too  much  neglected  history  of  our  country,  and 
to  the  many  beautiful  traits  of  magnanimity  and  virtue 
which  are  related  in  our  ancient  chronicles ;  partly  to  the 
innate  excellencies  of  our  language  itself, — the  strength, 
the  richness,  and  the  flexibility  which  it  never  fails  to 
display,  when  it  is  employed  in  a  manner  adapted  to  its 
character.  The  more  that  national  feelings  and  recollec- 
tions were  revived,  the  more  also  was  our  love  awakened 
for  our  mother  tongue.  That  acquaintance  with  foreign 
languages,  whether  dead  or  living,  which  is  necessary  for 


ADVAXTAGES  OF  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES.        3 

men  of  letters  and  men  of  fashion,  was  no  longer  connected 
with  neglect  of  their  vernacular  speech ;  a  neglect  which  is 
always  sure  to  work  its  OAvn  revenge  on  those  who  practise 
it,  and  which  can  never  be  supposed  to  create  any  prejudice 
either  in  favour  of  their  politeness  or  their  erudition.  The 
great  attention  with  which  foreign  languages  had  been  stu- 
died, was,  however,  at  this  period,  of  infinite  advantage  to 
our  own ;  for  every  foreign  language,  even  a  living  one, 
must  of  necessity  be  acquired  in  a  more  exact  manner  than 
our  vernacular  tongue.  Thus  the  mind  becomes  sharpened 
for  the  perception  of  the  general  principles  of  language; 
und  in  the  end  we  apply  to  the  polishing  and  enriching  of 
our  own  language  that  acuteness  Avhich  we  have  been  ac- 
customed to  exercise  on  others.  It  has  become,  in  a  word, 
the  great  object  of  general  ambition  to  add  to  the  strength 
and  the  variety,  which  are  the  distinguishing  excellencies  of 
our  native  tongue,  all  those  other  advantages  which  charac- 
terize the  most  cultivated  languages  of  ancient  as  well  as  of 
modern  times. 

It  is,  however,  my  purpose  to  exhibit  a  picture,  not  of 
German  literature  alone,  but  of  the  literature  of  the  Euro- 
pean nations  in  general.  There  cannot,  therefore,  be  any 
impropriety  in  anticipating  the  remark,  that  during  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  literature  of  many  other  countries 
underwent  a  change  similar  to  that  which  took  place  in  our 
OAvn,  and  manifested  the  same  disposition  to  resume  those 
national  characteristics,  and  that  national  spirit,  which  it 
had  been  the  ambition  of  the  preceding  period,  as  much  as 
possible,  to  obliterate.  The  example  of  England  will  suf- 
ficiently illustrate  my  meaning.  Even  there,  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  while  the  country  lay 
exhausted  and  drooping  under  the  consequences  of  the  civil 
wars  of  Cromwell,  the  public  taste  became  corrupted,  insip- 
id, tame,  sickly,  and  un-English.  The  language  itself  was 
neglected,  and  the  great  old  poets  and  authors  were  sinking 
fast  into  oblivion.  But  so  soon  as,  by  a  fortunate  revolution, 
the  political  independence  of  England  came  again  to  be 
displayed,  her  national  literature  also  began  to  revive.  The 
French  taste,  which  the  English  had  adopted,  became  every 
day  weaker ;  and  they  recurred  at  last,  with  redoubled  af- 
fection, to  the  old  poets  of  their  country.     It  became  an  ob- 


4  REVIVAL  OF  LITERATURE  IN  EUROPE. 

ject  of  much  study  to  preserve  their  lan^age  in  all  its 
strength  and  integrity;  a  number  of  great  writers  arose; 
and  since  that  time,  so  strong  and  so  unchanging  have  been 
their  care  and  partiality  for  every  monument,  and  every 
relic,  however  minute,  of  British  history  and  British  anti- 
quities, that,  so  far  as  this  matter  is  concerned,  we  can  re- 
proach their  national  character  with  only  the  one  glorious 
fault  of  a  too  exclusive  admiration  of  their  country. 

A  separation,  such  as  I  have  mentioned,  between  the  men 
of  letters  and  the  courtly  society,  and  again  between  both  of 
these  and  the  common  people,  is  destructive  of  all  national 
character.  It  is  necessary  that  the  different  natural  circum- 
stances and  situations  of  the  various  classes  of  mankind, 
should,  in  a  certain  degree,  work  together,  before  we  can 
either  attain  or  enjoy  excellence  in  the  productions  of  mind. 
Where  was  there  ever  any  work  entitled  to  be  called  truly 
perfect,  in  the  formation  of  which  the  strength  and  enthu- 
siasm of  youth  have  not  laboured  in  companionship  with  the 
experience  and  maturity  of  manhood  ?  Even  the  tenderness 
of  womanly  feeling  must  not  be  excluded  from  exerting  its 
due  influence  on  the  works  of  literature ;  because  when  the 
character  of  a  nation  is  once  truly  formed,  that  noble  sense 
of  delicacy  which  is  peculiar  to  the  sex,  may  do  much  to- 
wards maintaining  it  in  its  purity,  and  preventing  it  from 
overstepping  the  limits  of  the  beautiful.  There  are  only 
two  common  principles  on  which  every  work  of  imagina- 
tion must  more  or  less  proceed, — -firsts  On  the  expression  of 
those  feelings  which  are  common  to  all  men  of  elevated 
thinking ;  and,  secondly^  On  those  patriotic  feelings  and  as- 
sociations peculiar  to  the  people  in  whose  language  it  is 
composed,  and  on  whom  it  is  to  exert  its  nearest  and  most 
powerful  influence. 

That  the  formation  of  a  national  character  requires  a 
combination  of  all  those  powers  and  faculties,  which  we 
but  too  often  keep  distinct  and  isolated,  is  a  truth  which 
has  at  least  begun  to  be  felt.  The  learning  of  the  philoso- 
pher— the  acuteness  and  promptitude  of  the  man  of  business 
— ^the  earnestness  and  enthusiasm  of  the  solitary  artist — ^that 
lightness  and  flexibility  of  mental  impression,  and  every 
fleeting  delicacy  which  we  can  only  find,  and  learn  to  find, 
in  the  intercourse  of  society, — all  these  are  now  brought 


FORMATION  OF  NATIONAL  CHARACTER.        5 

somewhat  into  contact  with  each  other,  or,  at  least,  do  not 
stand  aloof  in  such  total  separation  as  of  old. 

But  however  much  literature  has  of  late  gained  in  most 
countries,  hy  becoming  more  national,  more  spirited,  and 
more  connected  with  the  affairs  of  life,  the  evil  of  which  I 
have  complained  is  yet  far  from  being  altogether  removed. 
In  Germany  we  may  still,  on  many  occasions,  see  literature 
and  active  life  stand  separated  like  two  different  worlds, 
having  no  influence  on  each  other.  If  all  the  individual 
varieties  of  mental  exertion,  and  mental  production  (which 
we  class  under  the  common  name  of  literature,)  be  not  in 
a  great  measure  lost  to  the  world ;  at  least  they  are  far,  very 
far,  from  exerting  their  due  influence  on  us,  either  as  indi- 
viduals or  as  a  nation.  Let  us  only  contemplate  for  a  mo- 
ment the  actual  state  of  literature,  but  particularly  those 
causes  which  are  most  powerful  in  their  influence  on  litera- 
ture itself^  and  on  the  estimation  in  which  it  is  generally 
held. 

It  seems  to  be  considered  as  a  common  right  to  all  poets 
and  artists,  to  live  only  in  the  world  of  their  own  thoughts, 
and  to  be  quite  unfitted  for  the  world  which  other  men  in- 
habit. Concerning  the  man  of  erudition,  it  is  a  maxim  in 
every  mouth,  that  he  is  a  being  of  no  practical  utility. 
Every  one  mistrusts  the  skill  of  the  orator,  and  imagines 
that  he  has  the  power  to  bend  the  truth  to  his  own  purposes, 
with  the  design  of  deceiving  and  misleading  us.  That  phi- 
losophy is  often  more  apt  to  lead  an  age  wrong,  and  betray 
it  into  the  most  unfortunate  errors,  than  really  to  enlighten 
and  maintain  it  in  the  truth,  is  sufficiently  manifest  from  our 
owTi  experience  and  the  history  of  the  present  age.  Through 
the  reciprocal  animosities  and  complaints  of  philosophers 
themselves,  it  has  become  commonly  known,  even  among 
the  uninitiated,  how  seldom  they  are  in  good  understanding 
with  each  other;  and  from  this  circumstance  the  opinion 
has  gone  abroad,  that,  in  general,  philosophical  tenets  exert 
no  practical  influence  on  those  who  maintain  them,  and  that 
philosophers,  like  other  men,  more  frequently  accommodate 
their  opinions  to  their  desires,  than  their  desires  to  their 
opinions.  Yet  nothing  can  be  more  irrational  than  to  en- 
deavour to  bring  into  discredit  the  noblest  struggle  which  it 
is  in  the  power  of  man  to  make, — the  struggle  afler  know- 

1* 


6  PECULIARITIES  OF  LITERARY  MEN. 

ledge  in  the  investigation  of  truth,  merely  on  account  of  the 
general  difficulty  of  the  undertaking,  and  the  ill  success  or 
ill  conduct  of  particular  inquirers.  There  is  indeed  no  oc- 
casion to  wonder,  that  men,  perpetually  occupied  with  the 
weighty  affairs  of  political  and  of  active  life,  should  consid- 
er the  petty  disputes  of  writers  as  a  mere  spectacle  of  amuse- 
ment, neither  very  interesting  nor  very  important.  Even 
the  countless  numher  of  books  must  produce,  in  the  greater 
proportion  of  readers,  such  a  feeling  of  satiety,  that  nothing 
can  appear  more  completely  trifling,  superfluous,  and  un- 
profitable, than  a  new  book,  adding  one  more  to  the  heap  of 
authors  whom  they  have  already  in  their  hands.  In  this 
sketch,  however,  I  have  omitted  to  notice,  that  in  my  opin- 
ion, writers  of  all  sorts,  poets,  learned  men,  and  artists,  are 
themselves  the  cause  of  a  great  share  of  that  contempt  of  lit- 
erature which  is  so  prevalent  throughout  the  world ;  for  this 
reason,  that  they  very  seldom  speak  their  mind  freely  and 
decidedly  on  the  subject.  But  even  if  all  the  reproaches 
which  are  commonly  cast  on  authors  and  their  works  were, 
on  the  whole,  just  and  well-founded,  will  any  one  deny  that 
there  are  at  least  glorious  exceptions  to  the  rule, — works 
both  of  learning  and  of  genius,  which,  in  relation  to  the 
world  in  general,  to  their  country,  and  to  the  age,  fulfil 
every  wish  that  could  be  formed,  and  are  in  all  respects  ab- 
solute and  perfect  ?  And  if  this  be  so,  why  are  men  so  slow 
to  recognize  the  absurdity  of  this  general  neglect,  Avhich  has 
no  better  logic  to  support  it  than  that  which  throws  the 
blame  of  partial  and  temporary  abuses  of  literature,  on  the 
essence  of  literature  itself,  a  thing  every  way  so  great  and 
so  important  ?  Or  why  do  they  persist  in  keeping  literary 
men  in  a  state  of  separation  from  the  world  at  large, — a  sit- 
uation from  which  so  many  of  their  errors  and  defects  are, 
in  all  probability,  derived? 

But  in  order  to  discover  with  perfect  clearnesss  and  pre- 
cision the  importance  of  literature,  both  in  its  original  desti- 
tination,  and  in  the  power  which  it  certainly  exerts  on  the 
worth  and  welfare  of  nations,  let  us  for  a  moment  consider 
it  under  both  of  these  aspects.  And,  in  the  first  place,  let 
us  regard  the  true  nature  and  object,  the  wide  extent,  and 
original  dignity  of  literature.  Under  this  name,  then,  I 
comprehend  all  those  arts  and  sciences,  and  all  those  mental 


IMPORTANCE  OF  LANGUAGE.  7 

exertions  which  have  human  life,  and  man  himself,  for  their 
object ;  but  Avhich,  manifesting-  themselves  in  no  external  ef- 
fect, energize  only  in  thought  and  speech,  and  without  re- 
quiring any  corporeal  matter  on  which  to  operate,  display 
intellect  as  embodied  in  written  language.  Under  this  are 
included, — first,  the  art  of  poetry,  and  the  kindred  art  of 
narration,  or  history;  next,  all  those  higher  exertions  of 
pure  reason  and  intellect  which  have  human  life,  and  man 
himself,  for  their  object,  and  which  have  influence  upon 
both ;  and,  last  of  all,  eloquence  and  wit,  whenever  these  do 
not  escape  in  the  fleeting  vehicle  of  oral  communication,  but 
remain  displayed  in  the  more  substantial  and  lasting  form 
of  written  productions.  And  when  I  have  enumerated 
these,  I  imagine  I  have  comprehended  almost  every  thing 
which  can  enter  into  the  composition  of  the  intellectual  life 
of  man.  With  the  single  exception  of  reason — and  even 
reason  can  scarcely  operate  without  the  intervention  of  lan- 
guage— is  there  any  thing  more  important  to  man,  more 
peculiar  to  him,  or  more  inseparable  from  his  nature,  than 
speech  1  Nature,  indeed,  could  not  have  bestowed  on  us  a 
gift  more  precious  than  the  human  voice,  which,  possessing 
sounds  for  the  expression  of  every  feeling,  and  being  capa- 
ble of  distinctions  as  minute,  and  combinations  as  intricate, 
as  the  most  complex  instrument  of  music,  is  thus  enabled  to 
furnish  materials  so  admirable  for  the  formation  of  artificial 
language.  The  greatest  and  most  important  discovery  of 
human  ingenuity  is  writing ;  there  is  no  impiety  in  saying, 
that  it  was  scarcely  in  the  power  of  the  Deity  to  confer  on 
man  a  more  glorious  present  than  Language,  by  the  me- 
dium of  which  he  himself  has  been  revealed  to  us,  and 
which  affords  at  once  the  strongest  bond  of  union,  and  the 
best  instrument  of  communication.  So  inseparable,  indeed, 
are  mind  and  language,  so  identically  one  are  thought  and 
speech,  that  although  we  must  always  hold  reason  to  be  the 
great  characteristic  and  peculiar  attribute  of  man,  yet  lan- 
guage also,  when  we  regard  its  original  object  and  intrinsic 
dignity,  is  well  entitled  to  be  considered  as  a  component  part 
of  the  intellectual  structure  of  our  being.  And  although, 
in  strict  application  and  rigid  expression,  thought  and  speech 
always  are,  and  always  must  be  regarded  as  two  things  me- 
taphysically distinct, — yet  there  only  can  we  find  these  two 


8  INFLUENCE  OF  LANGUAGE. 

elements  in  disunion,  where  one  or  both  have  been  employ- 
ed imperfectly  or  amiss.  Nay,  such  is  the  effect  of  the  ori- 
ginal union  or  identity,  that,  in  their  most  extensive  varieties 
of  application,  they  can  never  be  totally  disunited,  but  must 
always  remain  inseparable,  and  every  where  be  exerted  in 
combination. 

However  greatly  both  of  these  high  gifts,  which  are  so 
essentially  the  same, — ^these,  the  proudest  distinctions  of 
human  nature,  which  have  made  man  what  he  is, — may  be 
in  many  instances  misdirected  and  abused ;  still  our  innate 
and  indestructable  sense  of  the  original  dignity  of  speech 
and  language,  is  sufficiently  manifest,  from  the  importance 
which  we  attach  to  them,  in  the  formation  of  all  our  par- 
ticular  judgments  and  opinions.  What  influence  the  art  of 
speaking  has  upon  our  judgment  in  the  affairs  of  active  life, 
and  in  all  the  relations  of  society, — what  power  the  force 
of  expression  every  where  exerts  over  our  thoughts,  it  would 
be  superfluous  to  detail.  The  same  considerations  which 
govern  us  in  our  judgment  of  individuals,  determine  us  also 
in  our  opinions  concerning  nations  ;  and  we  are  at  once  dis- 
posed to  look  upon  that  people  as  the  most  enlightened  and 
the  most  polished,  which  makes  use  of  the  most  clear,  pre- 
cise, appropriate,  and  agreeable  medium  of  expression :  in- 
somuch, that  we  not  unfrequently  allow  ourselves  to  be  bias- 
sed even  to  weakness  by  the  external  advantage  of  diction 
and  utterance,  and  pay  more  attention  to  the  vehicle  than  to 
the  instrinsic  value  of  the  thoughts  themselves,  or  the  moral 
character  of  those  from  whom  they  proceed.  Nor  do  we 
form  our  opinions  in  this  manner  concerning  those  individ- 
uals alone,  and  those  people  who  reside  in  our  vicinity,  or 
with  whom  we  are  personally  acquainted ;  but  we  apply 
the  same  standard  to  those  who  are  removed  to  the  greatest 
distance  from  us,  both  in  time  and  situation.  Let  us  take, 
for  instance,  the  example  of  a  people  which  we  have  al- 
ways been  accustomed  to  class  under  the  general  epithet  of 
barbarian.  So  soon  as  some  observing  traveller  makes  him- 
self acquainted  with  their  language,  this  unfavourable 
opinion  begins  essentially  to  be  changed.  "  Barbarians  !" 
he  will  say,  "  they  are  indeed  barbarians,  for  they  are  un- 
acquainted with  our  arts  and  our  refinements,  as  well  as 
with  those  moral  evils  which  are  so  often  their  consequen- 


PECULIARITIES    OF  LANGUAGE.  9 

ces ;  but  it  is  at  least  impossible  to  deny  that  they  possess  a 
sound  and  strong  understanding,  and  a  natural  acuteness, 
which  we  cannot  observe  without  admiration.  Their  brief 
replies  are  most  touching,  and  not  unfrequently  display  a 
native  vein  of  wit.  Their  language  is  powerful  and  ex- 
pressive, and  possesses  the  most  marked  clearness  and 
precision."  Thus,  in  all  situations,  and  in  all  affairs,  we 
are  accustomed  and  compelled  to  reason  from  language  to 
intellect,  and  from  the  expression  to  the  thought.  But  these 
are  only  solitary  examples  in  solitary  cases. 

The  true  excellence  and  importance  of  those  arts  and 
sciences  which  exert  and  display  themselves  in  writing,  may 
be  seen,  in  a  more  general  point  of  view,  in  the  great  in- 
fluence which  they  have  exerted  on  the  character  and  fate 
of  nations,  throughout  the  history  of  the  world.  Here  it  is 
that  literature  appears  in  all  its  reach  and  comprehension, 
as  the  epitome  of  all  the  intellectual  capabilities  and  pro- 
gressive improvements  of  mankind.  If  we  look  back  to 
the  history  of  our  species,  and  observe  what  circumstances 
have  given  to  any  one  nation  the  greatest  advantages  over 
others,  we  shall  not,  I  think,  hesitate  to  admit,  that  there  is 
nothing  so  necessary  to  the  whole  improvement,  or  rather 
to  the  whole  intellectual  existence  of  a  nation,  as  the  pos- 
session of  a  plentiful  store  of  those  national  recollections 
and  associations,  which  are  lost  in  a  great  measure  during 
the  dark  ages  of  infant  society,  but  which  it  forms  the  great 
object  of  the  poetical  art  to  perpetuate  and  adorn.  Such 
national  recollections,  the  noblest  inheritance  which  a  peo- 
ple can  possess,  bestow  an  advantage  which  no  other  riches 
can  supply  ;  for  when  a  people  are  exalted  in  their  feelings 
and  enobled  in  their  own  estimation,  by  the  consciousness 
that  they  have  been  illustrious  in  ages  that  are  gone  by, — 
that  these  recollections  have  come  downi  to  them  from  a  re- 
mote and  a  heroic  ancestry, — in  a  word,  that  they  have  a 
national  'poetry  of  their  own,  we  are  willing  to  acknowledge 
that  their  pride  is  reasonable,  and  they  are  raised  in  our 
eyes  by  the  same  circumstances  which  gives  them  elevation 
in  their  own.  It  is  not  from  the  extent  of  its  undertakinofs 
alone,  or  from  the  remarkable  nature  of  the  incidents  of  its 
history,  that  we  judge  of  the  character  and  importance  of  a 
nation.     Many  a  nation,  which  has  undergone  in  its  time 


10  NATIONAL    HISTORY. 

all  the  varieties  of  human  fortune,  has  sunk  nameless  into 
oblivion,  and  left  behind  scarcely  a  trace  of  its  existence. 
Others,  more  fortunate,  have  transmitted  to  posterity  the 
memory  of  their  influence,  and  the  fame  of  their  conquests ; 
and  yet  we  scarcely  hold  the  narrative  to  be  worthy  of  our 
attention,  unless  the  spirit  of  the  nation  has  been  such  as  to 
communicate  its  interests  to  those  undertakings  and  those 
incidents  which  at  best  occupy  but  too  great  a  space  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  Remarkable  actions,  great  events, 
and  strange  catastrophies,  are  not  of  themselves  sufficient  to 
preserve  the  admiration  and  determine  the  judgement  of 
posterity.  These  are  only  to  be  attained  by  a  nation  who 
have  given  clear  proofs  that  they  were  not  insensible  instru- 
ments in  the  hands  of  destiny,  but  were  themselves  conscious 
of  the  greatness  of  their  deeds  and  the  singularity  of  their 
fortunes.  This  national  consciousness,  expressing  itself  in 
works  of  narrative  and  illustration,  is  History.  A  people 
whose  days  of  glory  and  victory  have  been  celebrated  by 
the  pen  of  a  Livy,  whose  misfortunes  and  decline  have 
been  bequeathed  to  posterity  in  the  pages  of  a  Tacitus,  ac- 
quires a  strange  pre-eminence  by  the  genius  of  her  historians, 
and  is  no  longer  in  any  danger  of  being  classed  with  the 
vulgar  multitude  of  nations,  which,  occupying  no  place  in 
the  history  of  human  intellect,  as  soon  as  they  have  per- 
formed their  part  of  conquest  or  defeat  on  the  stage  of  the 
world,  pass  away  from  our  view,  and  sink  forever  into  ob- 
livion. The  poet,  the  painter,  or  the  sculptor,  though  en- 
dued with  all  the  power  and  all  the  magic  of  his  art, — 
though  capable  of  reaching  or  embodying  the  boldest  flights 
of  imagination ; — ^the  philosopher,  though  he  may  be  able 
to  scrutinize  the  most  hidden  depth  of  human  thought,  (rare 
as  these  attainments  may  be,  and  few  equals  as  he  may  find 
in  the  society  with  which  he  is  surrounded,)  can,  during  the 
period  of  his  OAvn  life,  be  known  and  appreciated  only  by  a 
few.  But  the  sphere  of  his  influence  extends  with  the  pro- 
gress of  ages,  and  his  name  shines  brighter  and  broader  as 
it  grows  old.  Compared  with  his,  the  fame  of  the  legisla- 
tor, among  distant  nations,  and  the  celebrity  of  new  insti- 
tutions, appears  uncertain  and  obscure ;  while  the  glory  of 
the  conqueror,  after  a  few  centuries  have  sunk  into  the  all- 
whelming,  all-destroying  abyss  of  time,  is  for  ever  fading 


IMrORTANCE    OF  HISTORY.  11 

in  its  lustre,  until  at  length  it  perhaps  affords  a  subject  of 
exultation  to  some  plodding  antiquarian,  that  he  should  be 
able  to  discover  some  glimjuerings  of  a  name  which  had 
once  challenged  the  reverence  of  the  world.  It  may  safely 
be  affirmed,  that  not  only  among  the  moderns,  but  even  in 
the  latter  ages  of  antiquity,  the  preservation  and  extension 
of  the  fame  of  Greece  were  at  least  as  much  the  work  of 
Homer  and  Plato,  as  of  Solen  and  Alexander.  The  trib- 
ute of  attention  which  all  the  European  nations  so  willing- 
ly pay  to  the  history  of  the  Greeks,  as  the  authors  and  ex- 
amples of  European  refinement,  is  in  truth  more  rightly 
due  to  the  philosopher  and  the  poet,  than  to  the  conqueror 
and  the  legislator.  The  influence  which  the  works  and 
the  genius  of  Homer  have  of  themselves  produced  on  after 
ages,  or  rather,  indeed,  on  the  general  character  and  im- 
provement of  the  human  race,  has  alone  been  far  more  dur- 
able, and  far  more  extensive,  than  the  combined  effects  of 
all  the  institutions  of  the  Athenian,  and  all  the  heroic  deeds 
and  transcendent  victories  of  the  Macedonian.  In  trutb,  if 
Solon  and  Alexander  still  continue  to  be  glorious  and  im- 
mortal names,  their  glory  and  immortality  are  to  be  traced 
rather  to  the  influence  which,  by  certain  accidents,  their 
genius  has  exerted  on  the  intellectual  character  and  pro- 
gress of  the  species,  than  to  the  instrinsic  value  of  a  system 
of  municipal  laws  altogether  discrepant  from  our  o^\^l,  or 
to  the  establishment  of  a  few  dynasties  which  have  long 
since  passed  away. 

We  must  not,  indeed,  expect  to  find  many  poets  or  many 
philosophers  whose  genius  or  whose  celebrity  have  in  any 
degree  entitled  them  to  be  compared  with  Homer  and  Plato. 
But  wherever  one  is  to  be  found,  he,  like  them,  is  deserved- 
ly valued  by  posterity  as  a  solitary  light  in  the  midst  of 
darkness,  a  sure  index  and  a  common  standard,  by  which 
we  may  form  an  estimate  of  the  intellectual  power  and  re- 
finement of  the  age  and  nation  which  gave  him  birth. 

If  to  these  high  advantages  of  national  poetry  and  na- 
tional traditions,  of  a  history  abounding  in  subjects  of  me- 
ditation, of  refined  art,  and  profound  science,  we  add  the 
gifts  of  eloquence,  of  wit,  and  of  a  language  of  society 
adapted  to  all  the  ends  of  elegant  intercourse,  but  not  abused 
to  the  purpose  of  immorality :  we  have  filled  up  the  pic- 


12  THE  GENIUS  OF  HOMER. 

tiire  of  a  polished  and  intellectual  people,  and  we  have  a 
full  view  of  what  a  perfect  and  comprehensive  literature 
ought  to  be. 

Animated  as  I  am  by  the  wish  to  present  literature  in  all 
its  importance,  and  in  all  the  influence  which  it  exerts  on 
the  affairs  of  mankind,  I  am  far  from  being  insensible  to 
the  difficulties  of  the  task  which  I  have  undertaken.  I  am 
well  aware  that,  on  one  hand,  from  my  desire  to  be  brief 
and  comprehensive,  I  may  be  in  danger  of  passing  over 
many  things  in  a  cursory,  and  perhaps  an  incidental  man- 
ner, Avhich  might  well  deserve  the  fullest  explanation  and 
detail ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  from  my  anxiety  to  estab- 
lish the  justice  of  my  opinions,  by  a  reference  to  historical 
facts,  I  may  be  apt  to  dwell  on  particular  points  to  a  length 
which,  by  those  who  have  not  made  literature  the  great 
business  of  their  lives,  may  be  esteemed  useless  and  un- 
profitable. I  am  however  encouraged  to  proceed  in  my  at- 
tempt, by  the  long  intimacy  in  which  I  have  lived  with 
many  departments  of  literature.  The  ground,  indeed,  is  so 
rich  and  so  extensive,  that  no  one  who  is  at  all  acquainted 
with  its  nature  can  be  in  much  danger  of  believing  himself 
to  have  exhausted  it.  But  my  familiarity  with  a  subject 
which  has  occupied  almost  the  whole  of  my  life,  may  per- 
haps be  no  inadequate  preparation  for  giving  a  comprehen- 
sive sketch  of  literature  as  a  whole.  It  should  at  least  ena- 
ble me  to  distinguish,  with  some  precision,  between  what  is 
useful  only  as  a  step  to  something  farther,  and  what  posses- 
ses in  itself  the  importance  of  an  end ;  as  well  as  between 
those  results  whose  value  can  be  estimated  only  by  the 
learned,  and  those  which  possess  qualities  calculated  to  ren- 
der them  interesting  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  at  large. 

The  whole  of  our  mental  refinement  is  in  so  great  a  de- 
gree derived  from  that  of  the  ancients,  that  it  would  be  ex- 
tremely difficult  to  treat  of  literature  in  any  way,  without 
bestowing  at  least  a  few  introductory  observations  on  the 
writers  of  Greece  and  Rome.  It  would,  above  all  things, 
be  impossible  to  draw  a  picture  of  the  progress  of  literature 
in  general,  or  to  form  any  estimate  of  the  relative  merits  of 
the  works  which  have  appeared  in  our  own  time,  without 
having  previously  described,  in  some  sort,  the  peculiar  ex- 
cellencies of  the  great  masterpiece  of  antiquity.     The  his- 


WRITERS  OF  GREECE  AND  ROME.  13 

lory  of  Greece,  beyond  that  of  any  other  country  affords 
the  most  striking  illustration  of  the  strength  and  beauty  to 
which  literature  may  attain,  when  its  progress  is  fostered  by 
the  public  care  of  an  ingenious  and  lively  people ;  and,  in 
a  different  period  of  the  same  eventful  story,  the  poisonous 
influence  and  destructive  consequences  of  a  sophistical  elo- 
quence, are  displayed  with  a  power  and  a  clearness  for 
which  we  should  elsewhere  seek  in  vain. 

The  view  which  I  propose  to  take  of  antiquity  shall, 
however,  be  short  and  compressed,  however  much  I  might 
be  tempted  to  extend  my  account  of  the  literature  of  nations, 
to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  so  large  a  share  of  our  men- 
tal cultivation,  and  from  whom  we  have  derived  so  rich  a 
legacy  of  models,  in  every  department  both  of  letters  and 
of  art.  In  the  same  brief  manner  I  shall  notice  what  the 
literature  of  Europe  has  derived  from  the  oriental  nations, 
whether  in  the  more  remote  ages  of  antiquity,  or  during 
the  flourishing  period  of  Greece  and  Rome,  or  in  conse- 
quence of  the  intimate  connections  which  have  subsisted 
between  Europe  and  Asia  in  modern  times.  It  is  true  that, 
were  I  to  write  in  a  manner  strictly  chronological,  the  an- 
cient monuments  of  Asiatic  and  Egyptian  genius  would 
come  to  be  considered  before  those  of  the  Greeks.  But  as 
it  is  my  principal  object  to  give  a  historical  view  of  our 
European  refinement,  and  to  represent  literature  as  influ- 
encing the  affairs  of  active  life,  I  apprehend  I  shall  act 
more  suitably  to  my  design,  if  I  postpone  my  account  of 
those  matters  in  which  we  have  been  indebted  to  the  genius 
of  the  East,  till  I  come  to  treat  of  that  period  in  our  history, 
when  these  first  began  to  have  a  considerable  share  in  the 
formation  of  the  intellectual  character  of  the  Europeans,  I 
shall  then  with  particular  attention  review  the  antiquities  of 
our  northern  ancestors,  and  the  mythology  of  the  Goths, 
together  with  the  poetry  and  fiction  of  chivalry  Avhich  are 
derived  from  these  sources.  The  influence  of  the  Crusades, 
and  the  effects  of  the  intercourse  which  at  that  period  took 
place  between  the  Franks  and  the  Saracenic  nations,  will 
come  next  to  be  considered.  In  the  remaining  lectures,  I 
shall  describe  the  period  which  has  elapsed  since  the  revi- 
val of  letters,  and  conclude  with  a  full  and  particular  re- 
view of  the  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

2 


14  PLAN  OF  THE  WORK, 

In  the  meantime,  should  I  be  so  fortunate,  while  I  am 
occupied  with  the  history  of  ancient  literature,  as  to  shew 
some  things  which  are  well  known,  and  have  been  often 
treated  by  preceeding  writers,  in  a  new  light  and  a  new  con- 
nection,— I  hope  I  shall  have  the  greater  chance  of  meet- 
ing with  a  patient  hearing,  when,  in  the  progress  of  my  la- 
bours, I  shall  sometimes  venture  to  try  the  productions  of 
latter  ages,  and  more  particularly  those  of  our  own  times, 
by  the  test  of  principles  w^hich  are,  in  my  opinion,  well  en- 
titled to  respect  and  admiration,  although  they  may  not  un- 
frequently  appear  to  be  totally  in  opposition  to  the  acknow- 
ledged canons  of  ancient  criticism. 


In  addition  to  the  reasons  which  I  have  already  assigned 
for  beginning  my  account  of  literature  in  general,  with  a 
description  ofthat  of  the  Greeks,  I  may  notice,  that  they  are 
the  only  people  who  can  be  said  to  have,  in  almost  every 
respect,  created  their  own  literature ;  and  the  excellence  of 
whose  attainments  stand  almost  entirely  unconnected  with 
the  previous  cultivation  of  any  other  nations.  This  is  what 
we  can  by  no  means  assert  either  of  the  Roman  literature, 
or  of  that  of  the  modern  nations  of  Europe.  It  is  indeed 
true,  according  to  their  own  testimony,  that  the  Greeks  de- 
rived their  alphabet  from  the  Phoenicians;  and  the  first 
principles  of  architecture  and  mathematical  sciences,  as  well 
as  many  detached  ideas  of  their  philosophers,  and  many  of 
the  useful  arts  of  life,  from  the  Egyptians  of  the  early  in- 
habitants of  Asia.  Their  oldest  traditions  and  poems, 
moreover,  have  many  points  of  resemblance  to  the  most  an- 
cient remains  of  the  Asiatic  nations.  But  all  this  amounts 
to  nothing  more  than  a  few  scattered  hints  or  mutilated  re- 
collections; and  may,  indeed,  be  all  referred  to  the  common 
origin  of  mankind,  and  the  necessary  influence  of  that  dis- 
trict of  the  world,  in  which  the  mental  improvement  of  our 
species  was  first  considered  as  an  object  of  general  concern. 
Whatever  the  Greeks  learned  or  borrowed  from  others,  by 
the  skill  with  which  they  improved,  and  the  purposes  to 
which  they  applied  it,  became  thenceforth  altogether  their 
own.     If  they  were  indebted  to  those  who  had  gone  before 


LITERATURE  OE  THE  GREEKS.  15 

them  for  solitary  ideas  and  unconnected  hints,  the  great 
whole  of  their  intellectual  refinement  was  unquestionably 
the  work  of  their  own  genius.  The  Romans,  on  the  con- 
trary, and  the  modern  Europeans,  set  out  with  the  possession 
of  a  complete  body  of  literature,  and  examples  of  high  cul- 
tivation, derived  from  nations  more  ancient  than  themselves ; 
the  Romans  receiving  this  rich  legacy  from  the  Greeks; 
and  the  modern  Europeans  being  the  common  heirs  of  both 
of  these  peoples,  as  well  as  of  much  of  the  learning  and 
refinement  of  the  Orientals, — possessions  which,  till  within 
the  two  last  centuries,  they  can  scarcely  be  said  either  to 
have  appropriated  to  their  own  uses,  or  rendered  more  valua- 
ble by  the  addition  of  their  own  ingenuity. 

There  are  three  great  incidents  which  divide  the  whole 
of  the  truly  illustrious  period  of  the  Greek  history  into  as 
many  different  parts,  and  which  also  form  three  epochs  in 
the  history  of  the  mental  improvement  of  our  species, — ^the 
Persian  war,  in  the  first  place,  when  the  Greeks  contended 
for  the  maintenance  of  their  political  freedom  and  indepen- 
dence, with  united  strength  and  success  so  glorious,  against 
the  overwhelming  power  of  Asia ; — the  Peloponnesian  war, 
in  the  second  place,  a  civil  war  between  Athens  on  the  one 
iiand,   and  the    Doric   states  on   the   other,  which   raged 
throughout   the  whole  of  their   country  for  the   space    of 
twenty-seven   years;  in  the  course  of  which  the   arms  of 
kindred  tribes  were  turned  against  each  other,  and  the  poli- 
tical power  of  Greece  was  destroyed  by  the  valour  of  her 
own  children ; — and  last  of  all,  the  expedition  of  Alexander, 
by  means  of  which  the  spirit  and  the  empire  of  Greece 
were  extended  over  a  great  part  of  Asia,  like  the  scattering 
of  a  mingled  seed,  destined  to  give  birth  in  after  ages  to  a 
rich  harvest  both  of  evil  and  of  good.     A  new  Grseco-Asi- 
atic  taste  and  turn  of  thinking  were  produced  at  this  period, 
which  formed  a  bond  of  connection  more  close  than  had 
ever  before  united  Europe  and  Asia;  whose  influence,  in- 
deed, has  never  ceased,  and  which  at  this  moment  exerts  no 
inconsiderable  power  over  those  who  are  scarcely  aware  of 
its  existence. 

Had  the  Greeks  been  unsuccessfiil  in  the  war  which  they 
waged  in  defence  of  their  liberty  against  the  Persians,  and 
had  their  country  become  at  last  a  province  of  the  great 


16  POLISHED  LEARNING  OF  THE  GREEKS. 

empire  of  Xerxes,  their  place  in  the  history  of  the  human 
mind  must  have  been  widely  different  from  that  which  they 
at  present  hold.  They  must  have  remained  stationary 
Avhere  the  Persians  found  them;  or,  it  is  probable,  they 
might  have  declined  from  the  eminence  to  which  they  had 
already  attained.  It  is  true,  that,  to  a  certain  degree,  they 
must  always  have  remained  an  intellectual,  and  even  a  re- 
fined people.  Like  other  cultivated  nations  which  fell  un- 
der the  power  of  Persia, — ^the  Egyptians,  for  instance,  the 
Jews,  or  the  Phoenicians, — ^they  would  have  retained  their 
language  and  their  authors,  and  in  part,  it  may  be,  their 
customs  and  their  laws ;  for  the  government  of  Persia  was, 
upon  the  whole,  singularly  mild,  and  by  far  the  noblest  and 
the  best  of  all  the  universal  empires  which  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  But  the  spirit  of  man  never  reaches,  without 
freedom,  that  high  tone  to  which  it  attained  during  the  glo- 
rious struggle  of  the  Greeks. 

The  whole  happy  period  of  the  political  history  of  Greece, 
as  well  as  all  the  glories  of  her  literature,  occupy  no  greater 
space  than  the  three  hundred  years  which  intervened  between 
Solon  and  Alexander. 

With  Solon  commences  a  new  epoch  even  in  the  litera- 
ture of  Greece.  Not  only  does  the  perfecting  of  lyric  and 
the  beginning  of  dramatic  poetry  fall  within  this  period ;  it 
also  gave  birth  to  a  crowd  of  didactic  poets,  who  enlighten- 
ed the  opening  curiosity  of  the  public  mind,  and  displayed, 
in  all  the  beauty  of  verse,  the  fitness  of  moral  laws,  and  the 
physical  structure  of  the  universe.  It  was  then,  too,  that 
Herodotus  carried  at  once  to  perfection  the  art  of  writing  in 
prose.  The  freedom  of  spirit  which  Solon  introduced  and 
rendered  durable,  and  the  liberal  education  which  the  whole 
system  of  his  laws  rendered  indispensably  necessary  to  the 
noble  and  wealthy  citizens  of  Athens,  soon  rendered  the 
state  which  had  been  enlightened  by  his  legislation,  a  cen- 
tral point  of  illumination  to  all  the  republics  of  Greece. 

This  happy  period  ended  with  Alexander  the  Great. 
Demosthenes  was  born  only  one  year  later  than  the  too  suc- 
cessful conqueror  who  waged  the  last  war  against  the  inde- 
pendence of  his  country,  and  he  was  the  last  great  writer 
whose  works  were  addressed  to  the  Greeks  as  a  nation. 
The  Greeks  continued,  indeed,  long  afterwards,  to  be  a  pol- 


THE  HOMERIC  POEMS.  17 

ished  and  a  literary  people.  In  Egypt,  under  the  Ptole- 
mies, they  became  a  more  learned  and  a  more  philosophical 
people  than  they  had  ever  been  in  the  days  of  their  ancient 
glory  at  home ;  but  they  were  no  longer  a  nation,  and  with 
their  freedom,  their  whole  strength  of  feeling,  and  the  pe- 
culiar tone  of  their  spirit,  was  for  ever  lost. 

Within  so  short  a  space,  then,  lies  all  that  vast  and  mani- 
fold creation  of  productions,  which,  even  to  this  hour,  ren- 
der Greece  the  object  of  universal  wonder  and  reverence; 
a  great  spectacle,  and  well-deserving  of  thought ;  a  period 
fruitful  beyond  measure,  both  of  evil  and  of  good,  and  there- 
by doubly  instructive.  The  whole  history  of  the  world 
can  shew  but  one  more  such  spectacle  of  the  real  develop- 
ment of  awakened  intellect ;  but  that  we  shall  have  full 
leisure  to  consider  in  the  sequel. 

With  Solon  the  proper  epoch  of  Grecian  literature  begins. 
Before  his  time  the  Greeks  possessed  no  more  than  com- 
monly falls  to  the  share  of  every  people  who  are  blessed 
\vith  a  favorable  corporeal  organization,  while  they  are  ani- 
mated with  the  fresh  impulse  of  a  youthful  society — tradi- 
tions, which  hold  the  place  of  histories,  and  songs  and 
poems,  which  are  repeated  and  remembered  so  as  to  serve 
instead  of  books.  Such  songs  calculated  to  arouse  national 
feelings,  and  to  give  animation  in  the  hour  of  battle, — or  to 
be  sung  at  the  festivals  of  their  religion, — or  to  perpetuate 
the  joys  of  a  successful,  or  the  rage  and  hatred  of  a  slighted 
lover, — or  the  tears  which  the  poet  has  consecrated  to  the 
memory  of  his  departed  mistress — all  these  were  possessed 
by  the  Greeks,  in  the  utmost  variety,  from  the  most  early 
period  of  their  existence  as  a  nation.  Still  more  valuable 
are  those  songs  of  narrative,  which  express,  not  the  feelings 
that  seize  and  overpower  an  individual  poet,  but  embody 
the  recollection  and  the  feelings  of  the  people, — the  faint 
memory  of  an  almost  fabulous  antiquity, — the  achievements 
of  heroes  and  of  gods, — the  origin  of  a  nation, — and  the 
creation  of  the  world.  But  even  these  are  to  be  found  in 
abundance  among  other  nations,  as  well  as  among  the 
Greeks.  There  is  only  one  production,  the  high  pre-emi- 
nence of  which,  gives  to  the  early  ages  of  the  Greeks 
a  decided  superiority  over  those  of  every  other  people, — the 
Homeric  poems,  the  still  astonishing  works  of  the  Iliad  and 

2* 


18  THEIR  REVIVAL. 

the  Odyssey.  These,  indeed,  are  the  work  of  a  preceeding 
age ;  but  it  is  sufficiently  evident,  from  the  language,  the 
contents,  and,  above  all,  from  the  spirit  of  these  poems,  that 
they  were  designed  and  composed  within  a  short  time  (prob- 
ably within  a  century)  of  the  age  of  Solon.  In  his  time, 
at  all  events,  and  partly  by  means  of  his  personal  exertions, 
they  were  first  rescued  from  the  precariousness  and  forget- 
fulness  of  oral  recitation,  arranged  in  the  order  in  which  we 
see  them,  and  rendered,  as  they  have  ever  since  continued 
to  be,  the  objects  of  universal  attention  and  regard. 

Solon  and  his  successors  in  the  government  of  Athens, 
Peisistratus  and  the  Peisistratidae,  over  and  above  the  de- 
light which  they  must  have  derived  from  the  compositions 
themselves,  Avere  probably  influenced  by  views  of  a  nature 
purely  political,  to  interest  themselves  in  the  preservation  of 
the  Homeric  poems.  About  this  period,  that  is,  six  hun- 
dred years  before  Christ,  the  independence  of  the  Greeks  of 
Asia  Minor  was  much  threatened,  not  indeed  as  yet  by  the 
power  of  Persia,  but  by  that  of  the  Lydian  monarchs, 
whose  kingdom  was  soon  after  swallowed  up  in  the  im- 
mense empire  of  Cyrus.  As  soon,  however,  as  that  con- 
queror had  overcome  Croesus,  and  extended  his  power  over 
the  Lesser  Asia,  no  clear-sighted  patriot  could  any  longer 
conceal  from  himself  the  great  danger  which  was  impen- 
dent over  Greece.  The  greater  part  of  the  Grecian  states, 
indeed,  seem  to  have  remained  long  in  their  security,  with- 
out forseeing  the  storm  which  was  so  near  them,  and  which 
burst  with  such  fury  on  their  continent,  during  the  reigns 
of  Darius  and  of  Xerxes.  But  the  danger  must  have  been 
soon  and  thoroughly  perceived  by  Athens,  linked  as  she 
was  in  the  closest  intimacy  with  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  not 
only  by  all  the  ties  of  a  flourishing  commerce,  but  also  by 
the  common  oriq-in  of  their  Ionic  race.  The  revival  of 
these  old  songs,  which  relate  how  Grecian  heroes  Avarred 
with  united  strength  against  Asia,  and  laid  seige  to  the  me- 
tropolis of  Priam,  occured,  at  least,  at  a  very  favourable 
period,  to  nourish  in  the  Greeks  the  pride  of  heroic  feel- 
ings, and  excite  them  to  like  deeds  in  the  cause  of  their  in- 
dependence. 

Whether  any  such  event  as  the  Trojan  war  ever  in  real- 
ity  took   place,  we   have  no   positive  means   of  deciding. 


GRAVES    OF  ACHILLES    AND  PATROCLUS.  19 

The  dynasty  of  Agamemnon  and  the  Atreidse,  however,  falls 
almosts  within  the  limits  of  history.     Neither  is  it  at  all  un- 
likely that  much  intercourse  subsisted  at  a  very  early  pe- 
riod, between  the  Greek  peninsular  and  Asia  Minor :  for 
the  inhabitants  of  the  two  countries  Avere  kindred  peoples, 
speaking  nearly  the  same  language,  and  Pelops,  from  whom 
the  peninsula  itself  derived  its  name,  was  a  native  of  Asia. 
That  the  carrying  away  of  a  single  princess  should  have 
been  the  cause  of  a  imiversal  and  long  protracted  war,  is, 
at  least,  abundantly  consistent  with  the  spirit  of  the  heroic 
times,  and  forcibly  recals   to  our  recollection  a  parallel  pe- 
riod in  the  history  of  Christendom,  and  the  chivalry  of  the 
middle  ages.     However  much  of  fable  and  allegory  may 
have  been  weaved  into  the  story  of  Helen  and  Troy,  that 
many  great  recollections  of  the  remote  ages  were  in  some 
manner  connected  with  the  local  situation  of  Troy  itself,  is 
manifest  from  the  graves  of  heroes, — the  earthen  tumuli 
which  are  still  visible  on  that  part  of  the  coast.     That  these 
old  Greek  mounds  or  monuments,  which  were,  according 
to  universal  tradition,  pointed  out  as  the  graves  of  Achilles 
and  Patroclus, — over  one  of  which  Alexander  wept,  envying 
the  fate  of  the  hero  who  had  found  a  Homer  to  celebrate 
him, — that  these  were  in  existence  in  the  time  of  the  poet 
himself,  is,  I  think,  apparent  from  many  passages  of  the 
Iliad.     It  was  reserved  for  the  impious,  or  at  least  the  fool- 
ish, curiosity  of  our  own  age,  to  ransack  these  tombs,  and 
violate  the  sacred  repose  of  the  ashes  and  arms-  of  heroes, 
which  were  found  still  to  exist  within  their  recesses.     But 
all   these  are   matters  of  no  importance  to  the  subject  of 
which  I  am  at  present  treating ;  for  although  the  Trojan 
war  had  been  altogether  the  creation  of  the  poets  fancy, 
that  circumstance  could  have  had  little  influence,  either  on 
the  object  which  Solon  Peisistratus  had  in  view,  or  on  the 
spirit  of  patriotism  which  was  excited  by  the  revival  of  the 
Homeric  poems.     The  story  was,  at  all  events,  universally 
believed,  and  listened  to  as  an  incident  of  true  and  authentic 
history. 

To  the  Greeks,  accordingly,  of  every  age,  these  poems 
possessed  a  near  and  a  national  interest  of  the  most  lively 
and  touching  character,  while  to  us  their  principal  attrac- 
tion consist  in  the  more  universal  charm  of  beautiful  nar- 


20  ACHILLES  AND  ULYSSES. 

ration,  and  in  the  lofty  representations  which  they  unfold  of 
the  heroic  life.  For  here  there  prevails  not  any  peculiar 
mode  of  thinking,  or  system  of  prejudices,  adapted  to  live 
only  within  a  limited  period,  or  exclusively  to  celebrate  the 
fame  and  pre-eminence  of  some  particular  race, — defects 
which  are  so  apparent,  both  in  the  old  songs  of  the  Ara- 
bians, and  in  the  poems  of  Ossian.  There  breathes  through- 
out these  poems  a  freer  spirit,  a  sensibility  more  open,  more 
pure,  and  more  universal — alive  to  every  feeling  which  can 
make  an  impression  on  our  nature,  and  extending  to  every 
circumstance  and  condition  of  the  great  family  of  man. 
A  whole  world  is  laid  open  to  our  view  in  the  utmost  beauty 
and  clearness,  a  rich,  a  living,  and  an  ever-moving  picture. 
The  two  heroic  personages  of  Achilles  and  Ulysses,  which 
occupy  the  first  places  in  this  new  state  of  existence,  embo- 
dy the  whole  of  a  set  of  uniA^ersal  ideas  and  characters 
which  are  to  be  found  in  almost  all  the  traditions  of  heroic 
ages,  although  no  where  else  so  happily  unfolded  or  de- 
lineated with  so  masterly  a  hand.  Achilles,  a  youthful  he- 
ro, who,  in  the  fulness  of  his  victorious  strength  and  beauty, 
exhausts  all  the  glories  of  the  fleeting  life  of  man,  but  is 
doomed  to  an  early  death  and  a  tragical  destiny,  is  the  first 
and  the  most  lofty  of  these  characters ;  and  a  character  of 
the  same  species  is  to  be  found  in  numberless  poems  of  the 
heroic  age,  but  perhaps  no  where,  if  we  except  the  writers 
of  Greece,  so  well  developed  as  in  the  sagas  of  our  north- 
ern ancestors.  Even  among  the  most  lively  nations,  the 
traditions  and  recollections  of  the  heroic  times  are  invested 
with  a  half  mournful  and  melancholy  feeling,  a  spirit  of 
sorrow,  sometimes  elegiac,  more  frequently  tragical, — which 
speaks  at  once  to  our  bosoms  from  the  inmost  soul  of  the 
poetry  in  which  they  are  embodied  :  whether  it  be  that  the 
idea  of  a  long  vanished  age  of  freedom,  greatness,  and 
heroism,  stamps,  of  necessity,  such  an  impression  on  those 
who  are  accustomed  to  live  among  the  narrow  and  limited 
institutions  of  after  times ;  or  whether  it  be  not  rather  that 
poets  have  chosen  to  express,  only  in  compositions  of  a  cer- 
tain sort,  and  in  relation  to  certain  periods,  those  feehngs  of 
distant  reverence  and  self-abasement  with  wliich  it  is  natural 
to  us  at  all  times  to  reflect  on  the  happiness  and  simplicity 
of  ages  that  have  long  passed  away.     In  Ulysses  we  have 


HOMER  S  WRITINGS.  21 

displayed  another  and  a  less  elevated  form  of  the  heroic 
life,  but  one  scarcely  less  fertile  in  subjects  for  poetry,  or 
less  interesting  to  the  curiosity  of  posterity.  This  is  the 
voyaging  and  wandering  hero,  whose  experience  and  acute- 
ness  are  equal  to  his  valour,  who  is  alike  prepared  to  suffer 
with  patience  every  hardship,  and  to  plunge  with  boldness 
into  every  adventure  ;  and  who  thus  affords  the  most  unlim- 
ited scope  for  the  poetical  imagination,  by  giving  the  oppor- 
tunity of  introducing  and  adorning  whatever  of  wonderful 
or  of  rare  is  supposed,  during  the  infancy  of  geographj?-, 
by  the  simple  people  of  early  societies,  to  belong  to  ages 
and  places  with  which  they  are  personally  unacquainted. 
The  Homeric  works  are  equalled,  or  perhaps  surpassed,  in 
awful  strength  and  depth  of  feeling,  by  the  poetry  of  the 
north, — in  audacity,  in  splendour,  and  in  pomp,  by  that  of 
the  oriental  nations.  Their  peculiar  excellence  lies  in  the 
intuitive  perception  of  truth,  the  accuracy  of  description, 
and  the  great  clearness  of  understanding,  which  are  united 
in  them,  in  a  manner  so  unique,  with  all  the  simplicity  of 
childhood,  and  all  the  richness  of  an  unrivalled  imagination. 
In  them  we  find  a  mode  of  composition  so  full,  that  it  often 
becomes  prolix,  and  yet  we  are  never  weary  of  it,  so  match- 
less is  the  charm  of  the  language,  and  so  airy  the  lightness 
of  the  narrative ;  an  almost  dramatic  development  of  char- 
acters and  passions,  of  speeches  and  replies  ;  and  an  almost 
historical  fidelity  in  the  description  of  incidents  the  most 
minute.  It  is  perhaps,  to  this  last  peculiarity,  which  dis- 
tinguishes Homer  so  much,  even  among  the  poets  of  his 
own  country,  that  he  is  indebted  for  the  name  by  which  he 
is  knoA^Ti  to  us.  For  Homeros  signifies,  in  Greek,  a  wit- 
ness or  voucher,  and  this  name  has  probably  been  given  to 
him  on  account  of  his  truth, — such  truth,  I  mean,  as  it  was 
in  the  power  of  a  poet — especially  a  poet  who  celebrates 
heroic  ages,  to  possess.  To  us  he  is  indeed  a  Homer — a 
faithful  voucher,  an  unfalsifying  witness  of  the  true  shape 
and  fashion  of  the  heroic  life.  The  other  explanation  of 
the  word  Homeros — "  a  blind  man" — is  pointed  out  in  the 
often-repeated  and  vulgar  history  which  has  come  down  to 
us  of  the  life  of  a  poet,  concerning  whom  we  know  abso- 
lutely nothing,  and  is  without  doubt  ahogether  to  be  des- 
pised.    In  the  poetry  of  Milton,  even  without  the  express 


22  ILIAD  AND  ODYSSEY. 

assertion  of  the  poet  himself,  we  can  discover  many  marks 
that  he  saw  only  with  the  internal  eye  of  the  mind,  but  was 
deprived  of  the  quickening  and  cheering  influence  of  the 
light  of  day.  The  poetry  of  Ossian  is  clothed,  in  like  man- 
ner, with  a  melancholy  twilight,  and  seems  to  be  wrapped, 
as  it  were,  in  an  everlasting  cloud.  It  is  easy  to  perceive 
that  the  poet  himself  was  in  a  similar  condition.  But  he 
who  can  conceive  that  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  the  most 
clear  and  luminous  of  ancient  poems,  were  composed  by 
one  deprived  of  his  sight,  must,  at  least  in  some  degree, 
close  his  own  eyes,  before  he  can  resist  the  evidence  of  so 
many  thousand  circumstances  which  testify,  so  incontrovert- 
ibly,  the  reverse. 

In  whatever  way,  and  in  whatever  century,  the  Homeric 
poems  might  be  created  and  fashioned,  they  place  before  us 
a  time  when  the  heroic  age  was  on  the  decline,  or  had  per- 
haps already  gone  by.  For  there  are  two  different  worlds 
which  both  exist  together  in  the  compositions  of  Homer, — 
the  world  of  marvels  and  tradition,  which  still,  however, 
appears  to  be  near  and  lively  before  the  eyes  of  the  "^poet  ; 
and  the  living  circumstances  and  present  concerns  of  the 
world  which  produced  the  poet  himself  This  commin- 
gling of  the  present  and  the  past,  (by  which  the  first  is  adorn- 
ed, and  the  second  illustrated,)  lends,  in  a  pre-eminent  de- 
gree, to  the  Homeric  poems,  that  charm  which  is  so  pecu- 
liarly their  characteristic.  Of  old  the  whole  of  Greece 
was  ruled  by  kings  who  claimed  descent  from  the  heroic 
races.  This  is  still  the  case  in  the  world  of  Homer.  Very 
soon,  however,  after  his  time,  the  regal  form  of  government 
was  entirely  laid  aside,  and  every  people  which  had  power 
enough  to  be  independent,  erected  itself  into  a  little  republic. 
This  change  in  the  government  of  states,  and  the  condition 
of  their  citizens,  must  have  had  a  tendency  to  render  the  re- 
lations of  society  every  day  more  and  more  prosaic.  The 
old  heroic  tales  must  have,  by  degrees,  become  foreign  to 
the  feelings  of  the  people,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
this  universal  revolution  of  governments,  must  have  mainly 
contributed  towards  bringing  Homer  into  that  sort  of  obliv- 
ion, out  of  which  he  was  first  recalled  by  the  efforts  of 
Solon  and  Peisistratus. 

The  Homeric  poems  are  of  so  much  importance  in  the 


^SCHYLUS.  23 

literature  both  of  Greece  and  of  all  Europe,  and  are  in  so 
great  a  degree  the  foiuitain  heads  from  which  all  the  refine- 
ment of  the  ancients  was  derived,  that  I  could  not  resist  the 
temptation  of  detaining  you  at  least  a  few  moments  in  con- 
sidering their  character.  It  is,  indeed,  at  all  times  my  w^ish 
to  confine  myself  to  inventors ;  and  I  shall  not  scruple  to 
pass,  with  the  utmost  rapidity,  over  whole  centuries  of  imi- 
tation. I  pass  over  the  w^hole  period  which  intervened  be- 
tween Solon  and  the  Persian  war.  This  period  was  indeed 
chiefly  occupied  by  weak  imitations  of  Homer,  or  by  at- 
tempts towards  new  exertions  of  intellect,  and  new  species 
of  writing,  which  reached  not,  till  long  afterwards,  the  full 
and  perfect  development  of  maturity.  Besides  the  works  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  poets  and  other  authors  of  this  period, 
have  entirely  perished,  and  they  are  known  to  us  only  by 
scattered  fragments,  and  the  criticisms  of  their  successors. 

The  Persian  war  itself,  which  forms,  in  a  political  point 
of  view,  the  most  remarkable  epoch  in  the  history  of  Greece, 
is  illustrious,  even  when  considered  in  regard  to  literature, 
and  was  distinguished  by  many  great  poets  and  authors, 
whose  writings  are  still  in  our  hands,  Pindar,  who  was 
honoured  by  the  Greeks,  as  without  exception  the  most  sub- 
lime of  all  their  poets,  survived  the  conclusion  of  this  war ; 
during  which  his  conduct  gave  rise  to  the  suspicion  that  his 
dispositions  were  not  patriotic,  but  favourable  to  the  interests 
of  the  invaders.  ./Eschylus,  the  oldest  of  the  great  trage- 
dians of  Greece,  was  himself  a  soldier,  and  fought  with 
heroism  in  many  of  those  glorious  battles — one  of  which 
he  has  celebrated  by  perhaps  the  most  daring  exertion  of  his 
dramatic  genius.  Herodotus,  somewhat  younger,  was  born 
only  a  few  years  before  Xerxes  undertook  his  prodigious 
enterprise  against  the  Greeks ;  and  when  he  read,  before  as- 
sembled Greece,  the  books  of  his  history,  (which  do  much 
honour,  even  to  such  a  contest  as  they  record,)  the  great 
events  which  occupy  his  narrative  were  yet  fresh  in  the 
proud  recollection  of  his  victorious  countrymen. 

The  reproach  which  has  been  cast  upon  the  character  of 
Pindar  is  easily  accounted  for,  by  the  aversion  so  frequently 
apparent  in  his  writings,  for  that  predominance  of  the  dem- 
ocratic principle  which  gave  cause,  in  his  time,  to  so  many 
violent  commotions  throughout  Greece,  and  which  occasion- 


24  WRITINGS  OF  PINDAR. 

ed  in  the  end  consequences  yet  more  destructive ; — as  well 
as  by  the  evident  partiality  which  he  shews  for  the  regal 
form  of  government,  and  that  influence  of  the  nobility  which 
remained  always  so  powerful  among  the  Doric  states. 
Monarchy  and  aristocracy,  however,  it  is  fair  to  observe,  do 
not  appear  among  any  other  people  of  antiquity  in  a  light 
at  once  so  mild  and  so  illustrious  as  in  the  empire  of  Persia, 
— a  government  w^hich,  in  whatever  way  its  power  might 
be  abused  by  particular  princes,  was  on  the  whole  founded 
on  the  basis  of  elevation  of  sentiment,  and  purity  of  man- 
ners. 

As  a  Doric  writer,  Pindar  is  doubly  valuable  to  us,  for 
he  is  the  sole  representative  of  the  many  that  are  lost. 
What  we  call  Greek  literature,  and  possess  under  that  name 
in  the  great  writers  who  have  come  do"WTi  to  us,  is  in  truth 
only  the  literature  of  Ionia  and  Athens,  and,  if  we  take  in 
the  later  times,  of  Alexandria.  But  at  the  same  time  when 
poetry,  history,  and  philosophy,  were  flourishing  in  Athens 
and  the  Ionian  states,  the  Doric  people — (a  race  of  Greeks 
so  different  from  the  lonians  in  manners  and  government, 
in  language  and  in  modes  of  thinking) — possessed  a  litera- 
ture distinct  and  peculiar  to  themselves,  the  existence  of 
which  is  almost  the  only  fact  with  respect  to  it  of  which  we 
can  be  said  to  be  assured ; — poets  of  every  kind, — a  peculiar 
form  of  drama, — and,  after  the  time  of  P}i;hagoras,  philos- 
ophers also,  and  other  writers.  Although  all  these  have 
perished,  we  have  still  Pindar ;  and  from  him  we  may  ex- 
tract at  least  some  general  idea  of  Doric  manners,  and  if  we 
make  due  allowances  for  the  ornaments  and  partialities  of 
the  poet,  of  Doric  life. 

Nothing  can  be  more  foreign  to  the  style  of  Pindar  than 
the  elaborate  wildness  of  imagination,  and  the  artificial  ob- 
scurity which  characterize  the  modern  imitations  of  this 
great  poet,  and  have  from  them  received  the  name  of  Pin- 
daric. If  there  be  any  obscurity  in  his  own  writings,  it 
arises  from  the  frequent  allusions  which  he  makes  to  things 
which  are  indeed  foreiofn  to  us,  but  which  were  familiar  and 
present  to  those  for  whom  he  wrote.  While  he  is  celebra- 
ting the  victor  in  some  games,  it  is  not  unnatural  for  him  to 
introduce  the  praise  of  that  heroic  race  from  which  he  is 
descended — or  of  the  city  in  which  he  was  born — or  of  the 


GENIUS  OF  ^SCHYLUS.  25 

deity  in  whose  honour  the  games  were  held ;  and  this  gives 
occasion,  without  doubt,  to  some  abruptness  of  transition. 
In  truth,  these  festival  songs  can  scarcely  be  called  lyric 
poems,  at  least  they  bear  little  resemblance  to  what  we  com- 
monly understand  by  that  name.  They  are  heroic  or  epic 
poems  composed  in  celebration  of  particular  events,  which 
were  not  merely  sung,  but  accompanied  with  music  and 
dancing,  and  brought  forward  in  a  manner  somewhat  dra- 
matic. The  peculiar  characteristics  of  Pindar  are, — the 
lofty  beauty  and  musical  softness  of  his  language,  and  his 
fondness  of  considering  every  subject  in  the  most  dignified 
point  of  view  of  which  it  is  susceptible.  The  graceful  re- 
pose of  high-born  lords,  who,  in  peaceful  times,  and  sur- 
rounded by  happy  dependants,  passed  a  careless  life  in  chiv- 
alric  pastimes  and  contests ;  or  listened,  among  the  society 
of  congenial  friends,  to  the  songs  of  illustrious  poets,  and 
the  celebration  of  their  heroic  ancestors, — these  are  the  sub- 
jects which  Pindar  has  treated  with  unrivalled  excellence ; 
and  such  is  the  mode  of  life  which  he  ascribes,  not  to  his 
beloved  victors  alone,  and  the  Doric  nobles,  but  to  the  gods 
themselves  in  Olympus,  and  to  those  whose  virtues  shall  en- 
title them  to  participate  in  the  glories  of  an  eternal  life. 

The  next  great  poet,  ^schylus,  was  one  of  another  kind, 
and  animated  with  a  spirit  altogether  different.  The  war- 
like, bold,  and  lofty  sentiments  of  a  soldier  inflamed  with 
the  love  of  freedom,  which  are  ever  bursting  forth  in  his 
poetry,  place  us  at  once  within  the  circle  of  that  feeling 
which  might  well  be  the  predominant  one  of  haughty 
Athens  during  the  time  of  the  great  struggle  which  she  so 
gloriously  maintained.  As  a  poet  he  appears  only  in  that 
form  which  is  the  first  in  dignity,  and  the  most  peculiar  to 
Greece — the  great  form  of  tragedy — which  he  himself  first 
fashioned  and  unfolded,  although  perhaps  he  never  carried 
it  to  the  fulness  of  its  perfection.  His  poetry  is  pre-emi- 
nently powerful,  in  the  expression  of  the  terrible  and  tragic 
passions.  The  depth  of  poetic  feeling  is  in  him  accompa- 
nied with  the  intense  earnestness  of  philosophic  thought. 
A  philosopher,  well  may  he  be  called ;  and  the  reproach 
which  has  been  thrown  against  him — that  he  had  revealed 
in  his  poems  the  mysteries,  or  the  concealed  doctrines  of  the 
secret  society  of  Eleusis — is  a  proof  how  much  truth  in  all 

3 


26  CHARACTER  OF  HERODOTUS. 

things  had  been  the  object  of  his  most  earnest  inquiries.  In 
his  spirit  the  whole  mythology  of  the  Greeks  assumed  a 
new,  a  peculiar,  a  characteristic  appearance.  He  has  not 
been  contented  with  the  representation  of  individual  tragical 
events  :  Throughout  all  his  works  there  prevails  an  univer- 
sal and  perpetual  recurrence  to  a  whole  world  of  tragedy. 
The  subjection  of  the  old  gods  and  Titans — and  the  history 
of  that  lofty  race  being  subdued  and  enslaved  by  a  meaner 
and  less  worthy  generation — ^these  are  the  great  points  to 
which  almost  all  his  narrations  and  all  his  catastrophes  may 
be  referred.  The  original  dignity  and  greatness  of  nature 
and  of  man,  and  the  daily  declension  of  both  into  weakness 
and  worthlessness,  is  another  of  his  themes.  Yet  in  the 
midst  of  the  ruins  and  fragments  of  a  perishing  world,  he 
delights  to  astonish  us  now  and  then  with  a  view  of  that  old 
gigantic  strength — ^the  spirit  of  which  seems  to  be  embodied 
in  his  Prometheus — ever  bold  and  ever  free — chained  and 
tortured,  yet  invincible  within.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  to 
this  representation  the  merit  of  a  moral  sublimity,  which  is 
more  glorious  than  any  merely  poetical  beauty  of  which 
tragedy  can  be  the  vehicle. 

Herodotus,  from  whom  we  have  our  account  of  the  Per- 
sian war,  has  been  called  the  father  of  history.  It  is  true 
that  his  work  pretends  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  chronicle 
— a  candid  and  open  narration  of  all  the  incidents  which 
occurred  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  made  the  greatest  im- 
pression on  the  mind  of  the  narrator, — with  which  he  has, 
moreover,  interwoven  whatever  he  knew  from  any  other 
source,  either  of  the  world  or  of  its  history — and  into  which 
he  has  introduced,  by  way  of  episode,  a  description  of  his 
travels,  includino-  all  the  observations  which  he  had  made 
on  the  manners  and  customs  of  foreign  countries,  little  known 
to  the  Greeks  in  general,  but  carefully  visited  and  studied 
by  himself  The  number  of  his  episodes,  and  the  free  and 
poetical  arrangement  which  he  has  followed,  have  induced 
many  critics  to  rank  his  work  among  the  epic  narrations  of 
heroic  actions.  But,  in  reality,  the  truth,  the  simplicity,  the 
clearness,  the  flexibility,  and  the  unsought  pathos  which 
characterize  Herodotus,  are  exactly  the  qualities  which  ren- 
der an  historical  work  perfect  in  its  kind,  and  which,  but 
for  their  rarity,  we  should  all  be  ready  to  consider  as  the 


WORKS    OF    SOPHOCLES.  27 

most  indispensably  necessary  in  that  species  of  composition. 
He  is  the  Homer  of  history. 

To  these  three  great  authors  whom  I  have  attempted  to 
describe,  succeeded,  although  at  some  little  distance  of  time, 
others  of  a  rank  equally  exalted.  The  first  is  Sophocles. 
In  every  species  of  intellectual  developement — (as  in  the 
visible  gradations  of  the  physical  world) — there  is  one 
short  period  of  complete  bloom — one  highest  point  of  ful- 
ness and  perfection — which  is  manifested,  at  the  moment  of 
its  existence,  by  the  beauty  and  the  faultlessness  of  the  form 
and  the  language  in  which  it  is  embodied.  This  point,  not 
in  the  art  of  composing  tragedies  alone,  but  in  the  whole 
poetry  and  mental  refinement  of  the  Greeks,  is  the  period 
of  Sophocles.  In  him  we  find  an  overflo^ving  fiilness  of 
that  indescribable  charm  of  which  we  can  perceive  only 
rare  specimens  in  the  writings  of  most  other  poets  and 
writers — ^but  which,  whenever  we  do  find  it,  we  at  once, 
by  intuition  as  it  were,  recognize  to  be  the  symbol  of  per- 
fection, whether  it  makes  its  appearance  in  the  structure 
of  thought  or  the  style  of  language.  Through  the 
transparent  beauty  of  his  works  we  can  perceive  the  in- 
ternal harmony  and  beauty  of  his  soul.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark,  that  in  most  of  the  old  poets  many  traces  are 
to  be  found  of  a  peculiar  knowledge,  and  just  concep- 
tions, of  the  nature  and  attributes  of  the  Deity.  Or  if 
it  be  impossible  that  they  had  really  these  conceptions — 
(which  seems  to  follow  of  necessity  from  what  we  know  re- 
specting the  ages  in  which  they  lived) — it  were  at  least  the 
height  of  injustice  to  deny,  that  the  greatest  and  the  best  of 
them  have  anticipated,  to  a  wonderful  degree,  those  deep 
feelings  of  awe  and  reverence  with  which  we,  born  in  hap- 
pier days,  contemplate  the  revealed  character  of  God.  In 
none  of  the  most  ancient  poets  does  this  appear  with  more 
clearness  and  brilliancy  than  in  Sophocles.  In  all  coun- 
tries it  has  been  the  fate  and  progress  of  poetry  to  begin 
with  the  wonderful  and  the  sublime,  with  the  mysterious 
majesty  of  the  gods,  and  the  elevated  character  of  the  hero- 
ic times, — and  ever  afterwards  to  descend  lower  and  lower 
from  this  lofty  flight — to  approach  nearer  and  nearer  to 
the  earth — till  at  last  it  sinks  never  to  rise  again — into  the 
common  life  and  citizenship  of  ordinary  men.     The  region 


28  EURIPIDES. 

most  favourable  for  poetry  is  that  which  lies  in  the  middle, 
between  these  two  extremes,  while  the  magnanimity  of  the 
heroic  time  still  appears  natural  and  unsought,  and  while 
our  conceptions  of  Deity,  although  still  fresh  and  animated, 
do  not  stalk  before  us  in  the  gigantic  forms  of  supernatural 
strength  and  terror,  but  have  assumed  the  milder  and  more 
touching  character  of  human  tenderness,  serenity,  and  re- 
pose. This  is  the  peculiar  region  and  delight  of  Sophocles. 
With  regard  to  the  artificial  structure  of  Greek  tragedy 
which  was  by  him  brought  to  its  perfection,  I  shall  have 
many  opportunities  of  considering  that  subject  in  the  sequel 
— ^and  then  more  particularly,  when  I  shall  have  to  call 
your  attention  to  the  successful  or  abortive  attempts  of  other 
nations  to  imitate,  or  naturalize  among  themselves,  this 
great  form  of  the  art  of  poetry  among  the  Greeks. 

Euripides  was  the  successor  of  Sophocles  in  his  art,  but 
not  in  his  sentiments,  which  are,  indeed,  those  of  an  alto- 
gether different  generation.  He  was  at  least  as  much  an 
orator  as  a  poet,  and  accordingly  as  men  judge  favourably 
or  unfavourably  of  him,  is  commonly  styled  either  a  phi- 
sopher,  or  a  sophist.  But  in  the  school  of  sophistry  he 
certainly  was  formed,  and  from  it  he  has  unquestionably  bor- 
rowed many  ornaments  of  a  nature  altogether  foreign  from 
that  of  poetry ;  a  circumstance  which  is  often  dwelt  upon 
with  peculiar  felicity  by  his  unmerciful  enemy  and  persecu- 
tor Aristophanes.  But  before  I  proceed  to  describe  in  a  few 
words  this  writer,  and  some  others  of  the  declinino-  aafe  of 
Greece,  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  first  explain,  in  a  brief 
and  general  manner,  by  what  steps,  about  the  commence- 
ment of  the  civil  wars  and  political  corruptions  of  the  coun- 
try, the  race  of  sophists  succeeded  in  acquiring  that  Avide, 
destructive,  and  subduing  influence  over  the  intellectual 
character  of  Greece,  which  they  maintained  without  oppo- 
sition till  Socrates  rose  up  against  them;  w^ho,  having 
brought  back  the  perverted  taste  of  the  Athenians  as  iar  as 
was  possible,  from  the  errors  of  these  pernicious  teachers, 
became  the  founder  of  that  noble  school  out  of  which  Plato 
proceeded. 


LECTURE  IL 


THE  LATER  LITERATURE    OF    THE  GREEKS — THEIR    SOPHISTS   AND   PHILO- 
SOPHERS  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 

In  my  first  lecture  I  endeavoured,  by  a  rapid  sketch,  to 
recall  to  your  recollection  the  brilliant  spectacle  of  Greek 
genius,  as  it  flourished  for  a  few  years  in  all  its  power  and 
pre-eminence.  I  must  now  set  before  you  the  darker  side 
of  the  picture,  and  proceed  to  contemplate  the  effects  of  that 
principle  of  decay,  whose  operation  is  destined  to  follow  so 
closely  and  so  certainly,  after  every  jperiod  distinguished  by 
the  greatness  of  its  inventions,  and  the  beauties  of  its  produc- 
tions— and  which  here  also,  when  manners  had  become  im- 
pure, and  governments  corrupted,  by  means  of  a  false  and 
deceitful  sophistry,  succeeded  in  accomplishing  the  utter 
ruin  of  art  and  genius  among  the  Greeks, 

The  first  great  writer  who  sets  before  us  a  view  of  this 
decline  and  corruption  of  Greece,  as  manifested  in  the  inci- 
dents of  her  political  history,  is  Thucydides.  By  the  lofti- 
ness of  his  style,  and  the  depth  of  his  reflections,  this  author 
has  secured  to  himself  a  place  among  the  very  first  writers 
of  Greece.  His  history  is  the  masterpiece  of  energetic  re- 
presentation,— such  was  the  judgment  of  all  antiquity  con- 
cerning it,  and  on  that  account  it  was  commonly  said  to  be, 
not  indeed  a  poetical,  but  a  historical  drama.  And,  truly, 
well  might  the  history  of  that  great  civil  war,  which  occa- 
sioned the  decline,  and  ended  in  the  ruin  of  his  once  flou- 
rishing, happy,  and  powerful  country,  appear  to  the  histo- 
rian himself  as  possessing  all  the  life  and  interest  of  a  fear- 
ful tragedy.  The  events  which  he  has  recorded  are  indeed 
invested,  to  our  eyes,  with  an  interest  yet  more  mighty ; 
for  to  them  we  can  now  trace  consequences  which  in  his 
time  could  not  have  been  apparent — in  them  we  perceive 
the  causes  of  the  decay  and  doAvnfall,  not  of  Athens  only, 

3* 


30  THUCYDIDES. 

but  of  universal  Greece.  Thucydides  both  framed  and  per- 
fected that  form  of  historical  Avriting  which  is  peculiar  to 
the  Greeks.  The  characteristics  of  his  method  of  compos- 
ing history  consist,  first,  in  the  interweaving  of  political 
speeches,  framed  in  a  manner  at  once  clear  and  elaborate, 
Avhich  introduce  us  into  the  secret  motives  and  councils  by 
which  the  political  events  of  the  period  were  governed,  en- 
able us  to  survey  every  particular  incident  exactly  from  that 
point  of  view  in  which  it  Avas  regarded  by  each  of  the  most 
opposite  parties,  and  lay  open  the  most  hidden  wiles  of  con- 
tending statesmen,  with  an  acumen  superior  to  what  was 
ever  exerted  by  the  craftiest  of  them  all ;  secondly,  in  an 
almost  poetical,  minute,  energetic,  and  lively  representation 
of  battles,  and  those  other  external  incidents  which  occupy 
but  too  great  a  space  in  the  history  of  human  affairs ;  and 
lastly,  in  the  accumulation  of  all  those  highest  excellencies 
of  style,  Avhich  can  be  embodied  in  the  richest,  most  orna- 
mented, and  most  energetic  prose. 

The  similarity  of  their  political  institutions,  and  the  equal 
weight  and  influence  which  was,  under  their  form  of  go- 
vernment, attached  to  popular  oratory,  enabled  the  Romans 
to  naturalize  among  themselves  this  particular  species  of 
writing,  with  greater  ease,  and  a  success  more  perfect  than 
any  other  department  of  the  literature  of  the  Greeks.  With 
us  modern  Europeans  the  case  is  widely  different ;  our  at- 
tempts towards  imitation  of  the  Greek  historians  have  been 
in  general  lamentably  unsuccessful.  The  relations  of  so- 
ciety among  us  are  totally  of  another  sort  from  what  they 
were  in  the  republics  of  antiquity,  and  oratory  exerts  no 
longer  over  mankind  that  imperative  and  often  destructive 
influence  Avhich  it  formerly  possessed.  Above  all,  such  is 
the  effect  of  that  immense  storehouse  of  facts  which  we  have 
it  in  our  power  to  review  in  the  collected  history  of  the 
world,  that  we  have  lost  all  taste  for  minute  and  poetical 
descriptions  of  battles,  sieges,  and  other  external  incidents ; 
we  desire  instead  of  these,  short  and  precise  sketches  which 
carry  us  without  any  circumlocution  to  the  point  in  view, 
and  explain  in  simple  narrative,  events  as  they  really  hap- 
pened, with  the  true  causes  which  brought  them  about. 
Herodotus,  distinguished  as  he  is  by  unadorned  simplicity 
and  beautiful  clearness,  possesses  a  much  greater  share  of 


PECULIARITIES  OF  HIS  STYLE.  31 

this  expressive  brevity,  and  coincides  much  more  nearly 
\vith  our  ideas  of  excellence — or  at  least  with  the  scope  of 
our  own  attempts  in  historical  composition,  than  Thucydides. 
He  accordingly  is  the  model  of  modern  historians,  and  in- 
deed, he  was  the  model  of  Thucydides  himself,  who,  hoAV- 
ever  in  some  respects  he  may  fall  short  of  perfection,  holds 
unquestionably  the  first  place  among  the  historians  of  Greece. 
His  want  of  perfection  lies  neither  in  the  arrangement  of 
his  history  as  a  whole,  nor  in  the  connection  of  its  parts,  for 
these  are  throughout  dignified  and  exquisite,  or  as  was  ex- 
pressed in  the  universal  encomium  of  antiquity,  well  worthy 
of  a  great  historical  tragedy ;  but  merely  in  his  style,  which 
is  somewhat  massive  and  hard,  and  not  unfrequently  obscure. 
Whether  it  be  that  the  last  touch  of  the  master's  hand  was 
denied,  not  to  the  latter  part  alone  and  the  conclusion,  but 
(as  it  has  been  conjectured  by  a  critic  of  great  discernment), 
to  the  general  review  and  polishing  of  the  whole  work ;  or 
whether  it  be,  that  it  was  impossible  for  one  who  composed 
before  the  expiration  of  the  age  in  which  the  art  of  writing 
in  prose  was  first  created  and  fashioned — (more  particularly 
for  one  v/ho  made  use  of  a  style  so  ambitious  as  that  which 
was  attempted  by  this  prince  of  historians),  to  reach  at  once 
the  masterly  eminence  to  which  he  has  attained,  without 
leaving  behind  him  some  traces  of  the  laborious  straining 
and  toil  which  must  have  preceded  the  accomplishment  of 
his  daring  undertaking;  or  whether  it  might  not  be  that 
Thucydides  found  a  style,  such  as  he  has  employed,  sub- 
lime and  masterly,  yet  rough  and  in  some  measure  repulsive, 
the  most  suitable  vehicle  for  the  dark  contents  of  his  tragic 
story, — ^the  fearful  catastrophes,  the  decay  and  the  ruin  of 
his  country, — in  so  much  that  he  disdained  to  record  and 
lament  them,  in  the  language  of  elegance,  but  considered 
himself  throughout  the  progress  of  his  work — (what  he  has 
powerfully  declared  himself  in  its  commencement) — as  one 
framing  a  history  destined  to  be  a  possession  unto  eternity* 
While  Thucydides  has  thus  set  before  our  eyes,  and  ex- 
plained in  a  general  manner,  the  causes  and  progress  of  in- 
ternal corruption  in  all  the  states  and  societies  of  Greece ; 
Aristophanes,  on  the  other  hand,  has  painted  the  deep  de- 

*  Kr;?/ia  es  aet. 


32  ARISTOPHANES. 

cline  of  manners  not  only  in  Athens,  but  throughout  all  the 
republics  of  Greece,  in  a  manner  and  with  a  power  of  which 
those  who  are  unacquainted  with  him  can  form  no  concep- 
tion, but  the  place  of  which  could  not  have  been  supplied  to 
us  by  any  other  poetical  work,  or  by  any  monument  what- 
ever of  antiquity.  In  this  point  of  view,  when  considered 
as  a  document  of  the  history  of  ancient  manners,  the  value 
of  his  works  is  now  universally  recognized. 

If  we  would  judge  of  Aristophanes  as  a  writer  and  as  a 
poet,  we  must  transplant  ourselves  freely  and  entirely  into 
the  age  in  which  he  lived.  In  the  modern  ages  of  Europe 
it  has  often  been  made  the  subject  of  reproach  against  parti- 
cular nations  or  periods,  that  literature  in  general,  but  prin- 
cipally the  poets  and  their  works,  have  too  exclusively  en- 
deavoured to  repfulate  themselves  accordino-  to  the  rules  of 
polished  society,  and,  above  all,  the  prejudices  of  the  female 
sex.  Even  among  those  nations  and  in  those  periods  which 
have  been  most  frequently  charged  with  this  fault,  there  has 
been  no  want  of  authors,  Avho  have  loudly  lamented  that  it 
should  be  so,  and  asserted  and  maintained  with  no  inconsi- 
derable zeal,  that  the  introduction  of  this  far-sought  elegance 
and  gallantry,  not  only  into  the  body  of  literature  as  a  whole, 
but  even  into  those  departments  of  it  where  their  presence 
is  most  unsuitable,  has  an  evident  tendency  to  make  litera- 
ture tame,  poor,  uniform,  and  unmanly.  It  may  be,  that 
there  is  some  foundation  for  this  complaint :  the  whole  lite- 
rature of  antiquity,  but  particularly  that  of  the  Greeks,  lies 
open  to  a  reproach  of  an  entirely  opposite  nature.  If  our 
literature  has  sometimes  been  too  exclusively  feminine,  theirs 
was  at  all  times  uniformly  and  exclusively  masculine,  not 
unfrequently  of  a  nature  far  more  rough  and  unpolished  than 
might  have  been  expected  from  the  general  intellectual  cha- 
racter and  refinement  of  the  ancients. 

In  the  most  ancient  times,  indeed,  (as,  even  at  this  day, 
we  can  judge  from  the  picture  of  manners  which  is  unfold- 
ed to  us  in  the  Homeric  poems),  the  situation  of  women  in 
Greece  possessed  a  considerable  share  of  freedom  and  re- 
spectability ;  if  we  compare  it  with  that  of  the  same  sex  in 
other  countries,  at  a  period  equally  early  in  the  fonnation  of 
society,  we  may  even  say  that  it  was  happy.  But  in  later 
times  the  Greeks  adopted  by  degrees  all  the  tyranical  pre- 


FEMALE    INFLUENCE,  ETC.  83 

judices  of  their  Asiatic  neighbours,  and,  like  them,  devoted 
the  whole  female  sex  to  total  seclusion,  confinement,  and 
degradation.  The  republican  form  of  government  was  of 
itself,  inimical  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  influence  and  im- 
portance of  the  women  ;  for  its  evident  tendency  Avas  to  fill 
the  whole  life  and  soul  of  the  men  with  matters  of  public  mo- 
ment— with  views  which,  whether  they  were  just  or  false, 
and  events  which,  whether  they  were  real  or  fictitious,  were 
all  of  a  nature  purely  patriotic — and,  above  all,  to  engross 
the  whole  attention  of  each  individual  with  the  peculiar  po- 
litical tenets  or  prejudices  of  the  sect  or  party  to  which  he 
belonged.  It  is  true  that  the  situation  of  the  women  was  not 
every  where  the  same ;  on  the  contrary,  it  Avas  extremely 
different  in  different  states ;  and  the  several  tribes  which 
were  included  under  the  common  name  of  Greeks,  disagreed 
in  this  matter  as  much  as  they  did  in  almost  every  other 
point  either  of  manners  or  of  politics.  In  Sparta,  and  in 
general  among  all  the  descendants  of  the  Doric  race,  more 
particularly  among  those  of  them  who  had  adopted  the 
ethical  principles  of  the  Pythagoreans,  the  natural  rights 
and  dignity  of  the  female  character  were  recognized  infinite- 
ly more  than  in  the  Ionian  republics.  Upon  the  whole, 
however,  it  were  in  vain  to  deny  that  the  Asiatic  system  of 
secluding  and  confining  the  women  had  obtained  a  very  ex- 
tensive influence  throughout  Greece, — a  circumstance  which 
can  indeed  be  easily  traced  in  certain  unhappy  effects  which 
it  produced  on  the  works  of  Grecian  genius.  In  these 
works,  however  masterly  in  other  respects  may  be  their 
excellence,  there  is  often  wanting  a  certain  delicate  bloom 
of  womanly  tenderness  and  refinement,  which  is  very  far 
from  being  fit  for  introduction  every  where, — than  which 
nothing  can  be  more  utterly  detestable  when  it  bears  the 
sliofhtest  mark  of  being-  far  souo-ht  or  laboured — ^but  which 
we  miss  with  no  inconsiderable  regret  in  those  situations 
where  it  might  have  been  appropiately  admitted — to  say 
nothing  of  the  disgust  which  we  feel  when  its  place  is  oc- 
cupied by  vulgarity  or  coarseness,  whether  real  or  affected. 
Through  this  vice  in  their  mode  of  life,  the  writings  of  the 
ancients  in  general,  but  most  of  all  those  of  the  Greeks, 
have  not  only  been  rendered  less  polished  than  might  have 
been  expected  from  people  so  distinguished  as  they  were  for 


34  DECLINE  or  GRECIAN  MANNERS. 

refinement  and  urbanity ;  the  contempt  and  depression  of 
the  female  sex  have  wrought  their  own  revenge  by  effects 
yet  more  positively  injurious,  and  stained  the  whole  body  of 
their  literature  with  a  rudeness  that  is  always  unmannerly, 
and  not  unfrequently  unnatural.  Even  in  the  most  beautiful 
and  noble  of  the  works  of  the  ancients,  our  attention  is 
every  now  and  then  irresistibly  recalled  by  some  circum- 
stance or  other  to  this  point,  in  which  their  morality  was  so 
defective,  and  their  manners  so  perverted  from  the  standard 
of  their  original  simplicity. 

Here,  where  we  are  treating  of  the  decline  of  Grecian 
manners,  and  of  the  writer  who  has  painted  that  decline 
the  most  powerfully  and  the  most  clearly — the  considera- 
tion of  this  common  defect  of  antiquity  has,  I  imagine,  been 
not  improperly  introduced.  But  when  this  imperfection 
has  once  been  distinctly  recognized  as  one,  the  reproach  of 
which  affects  in  justice  not  the  individual  writers,  but  rather 
the  collective  character,  manners,  and  literature  of  antiquity ; 
it  were  absurd  to  allow  ourselves  to  be  any  longer  so  much 
influenced  by  it,  as  to  disguise  from  ourselves  the  great 
qualities  often  found  in  combination  with  it  in  writings 
which  are  altogether  invaluable  to  us,  both  as  specimens  of 
poetical  art,  and  as  representations  of  the  spoken  wit  of  a 
very  highly  refined  state  of  society — to  refuse,  in  one 
word,  to  perceive  in  Aristophanes  the  great  poet  which  he 
really  is.  It  is  true  that  the  species  and  form  of  his  writing 
— if  indeed  that  can  be  said  with  propriety  to  belong  to  any 
precise  species  or  form  of  composition — are  things  to  which 
we  have  no  parallel  in  modern  letters.  All  the  peculiarities 
of  the  old  comedy  may  be  traced  to  those  deifications  of 
physical  powers,  which  were  prevalent  among  the  ancients. 
Among  them,  in  the  festivals  dedicated  to  Bacchus  and  the 
other  frolicsome  deities,  every  sort  of  freedom — even  the 
wildest  ebullitions  of  mirth  and  jollity,  were  not  only  things 
permitted,  they  Avere  strictly  in  character,  and  formed,  in 
truth,  the  consecrated  ceremonial  of  the  season.  The  fan- 
cy, above  all  things,  a  power  by  its  very  nature  impatient 
of  constraint,  the  birth-right  and  peculiar  possession  of  the 
poet,  was  on  these  occasions  permitted  to  attempt  the  most 
audacious  heights,  and  revel  in  the  wildest  world  of  dreams, 
— loosened  for  a  moment  from  all  those  fetters  of  law,  cus- 


PLAYS  OF    ARISTOPHANES.  35 

torn,  and  propriety,  which  at  other  times,  and  in  other 
species  of  writing,  must  ever  regulate  its  exertion  even  in 
the  hands  of  poets.  The  true  poet,  however,  at  whatever 
time  this  old  privilege  granted  him  a  Saturnalian  licence 
for  the  play  of  his  fancy,  was  uniformly  impressed  with  a 
sense  of  the  obligation  under  which  he  lay,  not  only  by  a 
rich  and  various  display  of  his  inventive  genius,  but  by  the 
highest  elegance  of  language  and  versification,  to  maintain 
entire  his  poetical  dignity  and  descent,  and  to  show  in  the 
midst  of  all  his  extravagances,  that  he  was  not  animated 
by  prosaic  petulance,  nor  personal  spleen,  but  inspired  with 
the  genuine  audacity  and  fearlessness  of  a  poet.  Of  this 
there  is  the  most  perfect  illustration  in  Aristophanes.  In 
language  and  versification  his  excellence  is  not  barely  ac- 
knowledged— it  is  such  as  to  entitle  him  to  take  his  place 
among  the  first  poets  to  whom  Greece  has  given  birth.  In 
many  passages  of  serious  and  earnest  poetry  which 
(thanks  to  the  boundless  variety  and  lawless  formation  of 
the  popular  comedy  of  Athens,)  he  has  here  and  there  in- 
troduced, Aristophanes  shews  himself  to  be  a  true  poet,  and 
capable,  had  he  so  chosen,  of  reaching  the  highest  eminence 
even  in  the  more  dignified  departments  of  his  art.  How- 
ever much  his  writings  are  disfigured  by  a  perpetual  ad- 
mixture of  obscenity  and  filth,  and  however  great  a  part  of 
his  wit  must  to  us  in  modern  times  be  altogether  unintelli- 
gible,— after  deducting  from  the  computation  every  thing 
that  is  either  offensive  or  obscure,  there  will  still  remain  to 
the  readers  of  Aristophanes  a  luxurious  intellectual  banquet 
of  wit,  fancy,  invention,  and  poetical  boldness.  Liberty, 
such  as  that  of  which  he  makes  use,  could  indeed  have  ex- 
isted nowhere  but  under  such  a  lawless  democracy  as  that 
which  ruled  Athens  during  the  life  of  Aristophanes.  But 
that  a  species  of  drama,  originally  intended  solely  for  popu- 
lar amusement  in  one  particular  city,  should  have  admitted 
or  hazarded  so  rich  a  display  of  poetry — this  is  a  circum- 
stance which  cannot  fail  to  give  us  the  highest  possible  idea, 
if  not  of  the  general  respectability,  at  least  of  the  liveliness, 
spirituality,  and  correct  taste  of  the  populace  in  that  remark- 
able state  which  formed  the  focus  and  central  point  of  all 
the  eloquence  and  refinement,  as  well  as  of  all  the  lawless- 
ness and  all  the  corruption,  of  the  Greeks. 


36  CHARACTERISTICS    OF    HIS    WORKS. 

This  might  be  abundantly  sufficient,  not  indeed  to  repre- 
sent Aristophanes  as  a  fit  subject  of  imitation — for  that  he 
can  never  be — but  to  set  his  merit  as  a  poet  in  its  true  light. 
But  if  we  examine  into  the  use  which  he  has  made  as  a 
man — but  more  particularly  as  a  citizen — of  that  liberty 
which  was  his  poetical  birthright,  both  by  the  manners  of 
antiquity,  and  by  the  constitution  of  his  country,  we  shall 
find  many  things  which  might  be  said  still  farther  in  his 
vindication,  and  which  cannot  indeed  fail  to  raise  him  per- 
sonally in  our  esteem.  His  principal  merit  as  a  patriot 
consists  in  the  fidelity  with  which  he  paints  all  the  corrup- 
tions of  the  state,  and  in  the  chastisement  which  he  inflicts 
on  the  pestilent  demagogues  who  caused  that  corruption  or 
profited  by  its  effects.  The  latter  duty  was  attended  with 
no  inconsiderable  danger  in  a  state  governed  by  a  demo- 
cracy, and  during  a  time  of  total  anarchy — yet  Aristophanes 
has  performed  it  with  the  most  fearless  resolution.  It  is 
true  that  he  pursues  and  parodies  Euripides  with  unrelent- 
ing severity ;  but  this  is  perfectly  in  character  Avith  that  old 
spirit  of  merciless  enmity  which  animated  all  the  comic 
poets  against  the  tragedians ;  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  per- 
ceive that  not  only  the  more  ancient  ^.schylus,  but  even 
his  cotemporary  Sophocles,  is  uniformly  mentioned  in  a 
tone  altogether  different,  in  a  temper  moderate  and  sparing 
— ^nay,  very  frequently  with  the  profoundest  feelings  of  ad- 
miration and  respect.  It  forms  another  grievous  subject  of 
reproach  against  Aristophanes,  that  he  has  represented  in 
colours  so  odious,  Socrates,  the  most  wise  and  the  most  vir- 
tuous of  all  his  fellow-citizens :  it  is  however  by  no  means 
improbable  that  this  was  not  the  effect  of  mere  poetical 
wantonness  ;  but  that  Aristophanes  selected,  without  any 
bad  intention,  that  first  and  best  of  illustrious  names,  that  he 
might  under  it  render  the  Sophists  as  ridiculous  as  they  de- 
served to  be,  and  as  foolish  and  worthless  in  the  eyes  of  the 
people  as  he  could  make  them.  The  poet,  it  is  not  unlikely, 
in  his  o\vn  mind,  mingled  and  confounded,  even  without 
washing  it,  this  inestimable  sage  with  his  enemies  the  So- 
phists, to  whose  school  he  had  at  first  indeed  been  conducted 
by  his  inclination,  but  whose  maxims  he  studied,  and  whose 
schools  he  frequented  in  his  maturer  years,  solely  with  the 
view  of  making  himself  master  of  that  which  he  intended 


CULTIVATION   OF   THE  ARTS.  37 

to  refute  and  overthrow ;  the  utter  vanity  of  whose  doctrines 
induced  him  to  begin  the  arduous  attempt  to  revolutionize 
the  whole  intellectual  character  of  his  countrymen,  and  re- 
instate truth  in  her  rightful  supremacy. 

Not  only  political  institutions  and  private  manners,  but 
the  art  of  eloquence  itself,  and  all  those  branches  of  know- 
ledge which  exert  themselves  and  are  communicated  by 
speech,  and,  in  short,  the  whole  system  of  thinking,  among 
the  Greeks,  were  poisoned,  and  corrupted,  and  degraded  by 
the  spirit  of  Sophistry,  till  Socrates  turned  back  the  stream 
of  destruction,  and  guarded  his  country  as  well  as  might  be 
asrainst  the  danger  of  its  future  devastations.  This  inde- 
fatigable  inquirer  and  friend  of  truth,  was  a  simple  citizen 
of  Athens,  spent  his  days  in  the  most  narrow  and  limited 
situation  of  life,  and  had  no  immediate  influence  except  on  a 
small  circle  of  chosen  disciples  and  congenial  friends,  and 
yet  his  was  a  life  of  greater  importance  to  Greece,  and  his 
name  forms  perhaps  a  more  remarkable  epoch  in  her  his- 
tory, than  that  of  either  the  lawgiver  Solon,  or  the  con- 
queror Alexander.  But  before  I  can  set  in  an  intelligible 
manner  before  your  eyes  this  memorable  struggle  of  Socra- 
tes, the  regeneration  of  philosophy  which  resulted  from  it, 
and  the  subsequent  entire  renovation  and  exaltation  of  the 
intellectual  character  of  Greece,  it  is  necessary  that  I  should 
first  look  backwards  for  a  moment  to  the  more  ancient  phi- 
losophy and  popular  belief  of  the  Greeks,  as  well  as  to  the 
commencement  of  that  spirit  of  sophistry  which  sprung  up 
between  that  philosophy  and  that  belief,  and  was  reconcile- 
able  with  neither. 

However  conspicuous  was  the  pre-eminence  of  the 
Greeks  in  every  thing  which  relates  to  art  and  general  cul- 
tivation, in  every  thing  which  belongs  to  the  external  ap- 
pearance and  sensible  surface  of  human  refinement;  it  is 
impossible  to  deny  that  those  principles  which  formed  the 
groundAvork  of  all  these  brilliant  and  beautiful  manifesta- 
tions,— the  ideas  of  the  Greeks  concerning  the  nature  of  the 
universe,  concerning  God  and  man — were  far  too  material, 
and,  in  effect,  if  not  despicable,  at  least  unsatisfactory.  The 
more  ancient  of  the  Greek  philosophers  themselves  were 
indeed  all  of  this  opinion,  for  we  find  them  perpetually  lay- 
ing hold  of  Homer  and  Hesiod,  as  the  most  known  and  ce- 

4 


38  HOSTILITY  TO  POETRY. 

lebrated  masters  of  the  Greek  mythology,  not  to  approve  of 
or  praise  them,  but  co  ridicule  in  the  mass  their  poetical 
theology,  and  to  reprehend  and  condemn  them,  in  the  severest 
terms,  for  the  unworthy,  irrational,  and  immoral  representa- 
tions of  the  Deity  which  are  contained  in  their  works,  and 
had,  through  their  means,  become  constituent  parts  of  the 
popular  faith.  To  us,  indeed,  these  poetical  representations 
wear  no  appearance  but  that  of  a  beautiful  play  of  imagina- 
tion, and,  as  such,  they  are  well  fitted  to  furnish  us  both 
with  delight  and  inspiration ;  but  if  we  reflect  a  little  deeper 
on  the  matter,  if  we  consider  that  these  pleasing  vagaries  of 
fancy  were  really  received  into  the  popular  creed  as  so 
many  sober  truths,  and  contemplate  the  necessary  conse- 
quences of  this,  the  use  to  which  the  herd  of  vulgar  and  un- 
questioning believers  must  have  applied  them,  in  spite  of  all 
our  partiality  for  the  bewitching  poetry  in  which  these  ab- 
surdities are  embodied,  we  shall  have,  I  imagine,  no  great 
difficulty  in  adopting,  at  least  to  a  certain  extent,  the  imfa- 
vourable  and  condemnatory  judgment  of  the  philosophers ; 
we  shall  at  least  feel  and  understand  the  grounds  of  their 
aversion.  It  is  indeed  very  probable  that  they  carried  their 
enmity  to  poetry,  which  had  been  rationally  enough  com- 
menced, much  too  far,  and  that  they  expressed  themselves 
much  too  generally  in  their  vituperation  of  poetical  practice ; 
for  in  truth  the  development  of  Greek  genius  was  so  diver- 
sified, that  nothing  was  more  difficult  than  to  pronounce  a 
judgment  at  once  just  and  general  concerning  any  part  of 
their  literature,  more  particularly  in  the  early  period  of  its 
history.  However  this  might  be,  it  is  extremely  probable 
that  the  poems  previous  to  the  time  of  Homer,  those  songs 
which  celebrated  the  labours  of  Hercules — the  war  of  gods, 
giants,  and  heroes — ^the  beleaguering  of  Thebes  by  the  seven 
champions, — ^but  above  all,  the  marvellous  expedition  of 
Jason  and  the  Argonauts, — might  have,  in  part  at  least, 
contained  views  more  profound,  and  been  founded  on  prin- 
ciples much  more  elevated,  than  the  later  heroic  poems  of 
the  Trojan  time.  Some  things  in  these  more  ancient  poems 
might  coincide  much  more  closely  with  the  remains  of  Asia- 
tic theology,  than  any  production  of  the  Greeks,  after  their 
mode  of  thinking  had  been  changed — ^they  might  even  amount 
to  positive  recollections  of  an  Asiatic  ancestry.  Such,  at  least. 


KESIOD  AND  ORPHEUS.  39 

to  give  a  single  example,  appears  plainly  to  be  the  case  with 
that  beautiful  piece  of  poetry  which  goes  under  the  name 
of  Hesiod,  wherein  the  existence  of  an  original  and  gold- 
en age  of  innocence,  during  which  undisturbed  felicity  was 
the  lot  of  men  living  in  friendship  with  the  gods,  and  them- 
selves godlike  in  their  lives ;  next,  that  evil  age  in  which 
strength  and  valour  become  the  tests  of  justice ;  and  then 
the  whole  train  of  subsequent  degradation  and  corruption 
among  mankind — are  all  distinctly  and  orthodoxly  set  forth. 
In  relation  to  these  probably  more  profound  and  dignified 
conceptions  of  the  most  ancient  poets  of  Greece,  Orpheus  is 
a  name,  although  possibly  fabulous,  by  no  means  destitute 
of  meaning  to  the  student  of  history;  for  it  represents  at 
least  the  name  of  some  real  poet  who  revealed  and  commu- 
nicated to  his  fellow-countrymen,  in  such  heroic  songs  as 
were  best  adapted  for  the  spirit  of  his  age,  the  holy  symbols 
and  mysterious  secrets  of  these  ancient  recollections. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in  more  remote  pe- 
riods, and  of  whatever  nature  the  poetry  of  Orpheus  may 
have  been,  these  more  dignified  conceptions,  of  which  I 
have  been  speaking,  are  altogether  lost,  or  appear  only  in 
a  few  very  faint  traces,  in  the  works  of  the  Homeric  age. 
In  the  Theogony  which  has  been  left  us  by  Hesiod,  a  work 
whose  authority  was  apparently  very  universally  admitted, 
and  which  may  be  taken  as  a  standard  by  which  to  judge 
of  many  similar  works  that  have  perished, — these  concep- 
tions are  indeed  sufficiently  manifest ;  but  they  are  set  forth 
in  a  manner  too  material  and  altogether  contemptible.  Ac- 
cording to  this  poem  the  world  is  a  mere  appendix  to  chaos. 
To  say  nothing  of  the  inadequate  and  senseless  descriptions 
of  the  gods,  nature  is  represented  only  in  her  character  of 
fertility  and  fulness  of  life,  and  that  under  an  immense  va- 
riety of  emblems,  which  commonly,  however,  terminate  in 
the  idea  of  some  enormous  animal.  The  life  of  the  physi- 
cal world,  again,  is  according  to  the  doctrines  of  this  poetical 
theology,  represented  merely  as  a  perpetual  circumrotation 
of  love  and  hatred,  attraction  and  repulsion;  but  we  can 
scarcely  perceive  the  least  surmise  even  of  the  existence  of 
that  higher  spirit,  which  has  indeed  its  proper  residence  in 
the  intellect  of  man,  but  which  even  in  external  nature — at 


40  THEOGONY  OF  HESIOP. 

least  in  certain  parts  of  her  structure, — ^breaks  through  and 
is  made  manifest. 

In  this  theology  there  is  contained,  in  fact,  absolute  mate- 
rialism— ^not  indeed  set  forth  systematically  with  all  the  pre- 
tension of  science  and  philosophy — ^but  clothed  in  poetical 
form,  and  adapted  to  take  fast  and  exclusive  hold  of  the  po- 
pular belief  Of  Homer,  indeed,  we  cannot  with  propriety 
say  so  much;  at  least  no  such  thorough  materialism  ap- 
pears on  the  face  of  his  writings.  There  is  much  more  of 
it,  however,  than  could  have  been  wished  in  those  altogether 
human  representations,  which  his  poetical  fancy  has  given 
us  of  the  character  and  conduct  of  deities ;  for  in  them  we 
can  perceive  no  trace  either  of  what  we,  in  philosophical  as 
well  as  in  common  language,  call  religion,  or  any  other 
principle  which  might  be  substituted  in  its  place.  Not  that 
there  is  any  unbelief  or  scepticism,  or  any  openly  and  con- 
temptibly material  conception  of  the  divine  nature,  in  the 
writings  of  Homer :  His  defect  is  rather  a  total  ignorance, 
or  an  incapability,  like  that  of  a  child,  for  forming  any  ade- 
quate idea  of  God — diversified,  however,  here  and  there,  as 
is  the  case  in  children,  with  an  exquisite  feeling,  or  a  happy 
surmise,  or  a  solitary  flash  of  the  truth. 

According  to  the  view  which  I  have  now  been  taking  of 
the  matter,  Hesiod  must  be  entirely  given  up  to  the  strong 
and  well-founded  reproaches  of  the  ancient  philosophers, 
but  the  judgment  which  we  should  form  of  Homer  ought 
to  be  somev/hat  more  favourable.  Yet  there  is  no  difficulty 
in  seeing  what  parts  even  of  his  mythology  must  have  given 
offence  to  the  moralists  of  after  times,  and  it  is  not  to  be  de- 
nied that  upon  the  whole,  in  a  poetical,  but  much  more  in  a 
moral  point  of  view,  his  representations  of  the  gods  form 
the  weakest  parts  of  all  his  productions.  If  the  Homeric 
heroes,  in  their  size  and  strength  at  least,  appear  superhu- 
man and  godlike,  it  is  equally  true  that  the  Homeric  gods 
are  of  a  nature  infinitely  coarser,  and  much  more  entangled 
with  human  infirmities,  and  in  all  respects  less  godlike  be- 
ings, than  the  heroes  in  whose  quarrels  they  engage.  This 
may  easily  be  accounted  for,  if  we  reflect  that,  in  framing 
the  character  and  actions  of  his  deities,  the  poet  did  not,  in 
all  probability,  consider  himself  as  entitled  to  exert  the  en- 
nobling power  of  his   own   imagination,  but   adhered  as 


A 

THE  HEATHEN  DEITIES.  41 

closely  as  he  could  to  the  relics  of  ancient  tradition,  and  the 
substance  of  the  popular  belief 

All  the  forms  attributed  to  deities,  and  all  the  incidents 
which  compose  their  history  in  the  popular  creed  of  anti- 
quity, had  originally  some  covert  meaning — most  frequently 
of  a  physical  nature.  Now,  it  might  easily  have  been  fore- 
seen that  an  attempt  to  represent  in  this  manner  physical 
objects  and  events  under  the  guise  of  human  beings,  and  hu- 
man actions,  could  not  fail  to  terminate,  very  often  at  once 
in  absurdity  and  immorality.  Let  us  only  consider  the  fa- 
ble of  Saturn  or  Chronos,  who  is  represented  as  eating  his 
o\\'n  children.  Nothing  can  be  more  odious  than  this,  if 
we  take  it  in  its  human  or  moral  acceptation ;  and  yet  no- 
thing more  is  intended  by  it  than  to  set  forth  the  perpetual 
decay  and  renewal  of  external  things,  the  destroying  and 
reproductive  powers  of  nature  herself  Hesiod  abounds  in 
similar  fictions  and  representations,  which  become  altogether 
senseless,  improper,  and  vicious,  the  moment  Ave  view  them 
without  reference  to  their  original  and  physical  meaning. 
In  like  manner,  that  symbolic  meaning,  which  was  origi- 
nally intended  to  be  shadowed  forth  in  all  the  corporeal  re- 
presentations of  divine  or  superhuman  nature,  is  extremely 
hostile  to  beauty  in  all  the  imitative  arts.  Let  us  take  for 
instance  the  representation  of  a  hundred-handed  giant,  a 
plain  and  obvious  emblem  of  strength  and  enormous  activity. 
In  a  poem  we  might  find  no  great  fault  with  this,  and  in- 
deed we  are  familiar  with  its  occurrence  both  in  Homer 
and  Hesiod ;  but  our  tolerance  is  only  produced  by  the  dul- 
ness  of  our  imaginations,  and  the  difficulty  with  which  we 
form  to  ourselves  any  precise  and  lively  idea  of  a  thing  de- 
scribed to  us  only  in  words.  Were  the  hundred-handed 
giant  set  distinctly  and  substantially  before  us  in  a  work  of 
sculpture,  we  should  be  as  much  shocked  with  the  deformi- 
ty of  this  Grecian  image,  as  we  can  be  with  any  of  the 
hideous  and  unearthly  monsters  which  fill  the  gloomy  tem- 
ples of  Jaggernaut  or  Benares.  Or  we  may  take  any  re- 
presentations of  a  similar  nature,  however  superior  to  the 
one  I  have  instanced,  both  in  spirituality  and  in  dignity : 
we  shall  find  the  best  of  them  almost  equally  inimical  to  the 
beauty  of  form.  The  Indians,  for  example,  embody  their 
conception  of  the  three  great  exertions  of  the  power  of  one 

4* 


42  THE  GREEK  MYTHOLOGY. 

Divine  Being,— creation,  preservation,  and  destruction, — 
in  the  image  of  a  figure  with  three  heads.  In  like  manner, 
and  Avith  a  similar  typical  meaning  and  purpose,  the  Brah- 
ma of  Hindostan  is  represented  with  four  faces,  exactly  as 
the  Janus  of  ancient  Italy  was  represented  with  two.  All 
these  symbolical  images  are  hostile  to  the  beauty  of  imita- 
tive representations.  The  art  of  sculpture  reached  accor- 
dingly far  greater  perfection  among  the  Greeks  than  it  ever 
attained  among  the  Egyptians,  merely  because  the  former 
people  did  not  adhere  so  pertinaciously  as  the  latter  to  those 
ancient  symbols,  but  were  perpetually  laying  them  more 
and  more  aside,  in  so  far  as  they  were  chargeable  with  de- 
formity ;  although  they  at  no  time  framed  their  images  of 
superior  beings  after  mere  human  models,  but  were  ever 
solicitous  to  stamp,  upon  the  features  which  they  borrowed 
from  them,  the  seal  and  impress  of  divinity.  In  their  poetry 
also,  the  same  thing  may  be  remarked ;  for  it  was  uniformly 
attempted  by  all  their  serious  poets,  but  most  of  all  by  the 
grand  and  noble  lyrical  poet  on  whose  genius  I  have  already 
commented,  to  soften  down  and  polish  away  those  rough 
and  barbarous  circumstances  in  their  ancient  mjrthology, 
which  are  most  offensive  to  a  refined  understanding.  It  is 
true  that  these  circumstances  were  never  so  thoroughly  dis- 
guised in  their  poetry  as  in  their  sculpture,  for  the  poetry 
of  the  Greeks  Avas  religious  in  its  origin,  and  depended  for 
its  existence  on  that  very  mythology,  of  whose  deformities, 
however  glaring,  it  would  have  been  hazardous,  and  in  all 
probability  quite  useless,  for  any  one  poet  to  attempt  the  era- 
dication. For  this  reason,  even  in  those  poets  who  are  the 
fondest  of  representing  deities  as  mere  men,  there  are  always 
some  traces  to  be  discovered  of  those  ancient  types.  A  sin- 
gle example  from  Homer  (whose  deities  are  the  most  hu- 
man of  all,)  will  render  this  abundantly  perspicuous.  When 
Jupiter,  in  an  ebullition  of  rage  by  no  means  inconsistent 
with  his  Homeric  character,  tells  the  assembled  gods,  that 
although  they  should  fasten  a  chain  to  the  heavens,  and 
drag  it  doAATiwards  with  united  strength,  they  would  not  be 
able  to  move  him  from  his  seat — ^nay,  that,  if  it  so  pleased 
him,  he  could  by  one  touch  draw  them  all  up  to  him  from 
the  earth  :  at  first  sight  this  appears  to  be  nothing  more  than 
a  piece  of  rough  and  swaggering  redomontado,  yet  there  is 


GRECIAN    ALLEGORIES.  43 

no  doubt  that  in  this  passage  reference  is  made  to  the  chain- 
like connection  which  runs  through  all  things,  and  unites, 
in  some  sort,  not  only  the  heavens  with  the  earth,  and  the 
earth  with  the  sea — but  the  greatest  and  the  most  dignified, 
with  the  weakest  and  the  humblest  of  intellectual  existences. 
So  accordingly  was  this  allegory  universally  explained 
among  the  ancients.  A  second  passage  sets  the  matter  in  a 
yet  clearer  light,  and  is  even  more  disagreeable  to  our  feel- 
ings, when  considered  only  in  its  obvious  and  primary  ac- 
ceptation. In  another  of  these  customary  fits  of  passion, 
the  father  of  gods  and  men  desires  Juno  to  reflect  on  the 
strife  which  she  of  old  had  kindled,  by  persevering  in  her 
unmerciful  persecution  of  Hercules,  his  favourite  son ;  and 
how,  in  consequence  of  that  strife,  the  queen  of  heaven 
(which  antiquity  interpreted  to  mean  the  sky,)  had  been 
suspended  by  her  fastened  hands,  from  the  vault  of  the  firma- 
ment, having  each  foot  burdened  with  the  weight  of  an  an- 
vil. It  is  probable  that  the  poet,  in  this  instance,  did  not 
shadow  forth  some  mere  allegorical  conception  of  his  own, 
but  alluded  to  some  individual  and  familiar  hieroglyphical 
carving  in  one  of  the  temples  of  his  country.  Passages  of 
this  nature,  however,  are  of  very  rare  occurrence  in  Homer, 
and  on  this  account  many  commentators  either  reject  them 
as  not  genuine,  or  endeavour  to  furnish  them  with  some 
different  interpretation. 

It  was  probably  owing  to  these  and  other  similar  repre- 
sentations, that  the  great  moralists  of  Greece  entertained  an 
unfavourable  opinion,  not  of  Homer  only,  but  of  poetry  it- 
self, and  in  their  ideal  systems  of  perfect  legislation  and 
government,  entirely  prohibited  the  use  of  that  impassiona- 
ting  art.  But  the  poetical  application  of  these  relics  of  a 
former  time, — of  this  imperfect,  and,  in  a  great  measure,  un- 
intelligible system  of  symbols,  must  have  been  equally 
offensive  to  the  moral  writers,  for  another  reason  of  an 
altogether  different  kind.  In  consequence  of  that  universal 
vanity  and  ambition  of  the  ancients,  which  attributed  the 
origin  of  all  their  noble  and  illustrious  femilies  to  some 
hero,  and  the  birth  of  every  hero  to  some  god,  the  number- 
less procession  of  these  demigod-children  ascribed  to  all  the 
deities,  but  particularly  to  Jupiter,  was  such,  that  Ovid  has 
entirely  filled  several  books  of  his  great  poem  with  an  ac- 


44  THEIR  INFLUENCE  ON  CTTAnACTER. 

count  of  the  divine  amours  Avhich  gave  occasion  to  their 
birth.  All  this,  as  I  have  already  observed,  is  regarded  by 
us  as  the  mere  display  of  a  luxurious  and  delightful  imagi- 
nation, and  we  can  scarcely  conceive  the  possibility  of  any 
serious  and  pious  belief  having  ever  been  attached  to  absur- 
dities so  amusing.  But  hoAV  could  the  ancient  moralists 
consider  so  lightly  poetical  fictions  which  formed  the  root 
and  essence  of  the  popular  creed  of  their  country  ? — a  creed, 
too,  on  which  the  whole  internal  principles,  and  exterior  de- 
monstrations of  moral  feeling  were  substantially  dependent ; 
whose  pernicious  influence  on  the  character  of  those  who 
adopted  it,  was  every  day  before  their  eyes,  in  the  willing 
zeal  with  which  their  believing  countrymen  imitated  the 
moral  transgressions  of  their  gods. 

In  so  far,  then,  the  reproaches  of  the  old  philosophers,  if 
we  set  them  in  a  proper  point  of  view,  may  be  both  under- 
stood and  justified.  But,  in  truth,  before  we  can  judge  aright 
of  this  m^atter,  we  must  draw  a  line  of  distinction  between 
Homer,  individually  considered,  and  the  ancient  mythology 
taken  as  a  general  system  of  belief  Homer,  in  spite  of  all 
his  defects,  (and  we  have  already  touched  upon  most  of 
them,)  has  been  the  source  of  so  much  good  both  to  Greece 
and  to  all  Europe,  that  we  cannot  sufficiently  express  the 
gratitude  Ave  owe  to  Solon  and  the  Pisistratidse  for  preser- 
ving to  us  this  great  poet,  whom  the  philosophers,  had  their 
opinions  ever  gained  the  mastery,  would  in  all  probability 
have  brought  into  forgetfulness,  as  they  have  already  done 
every  thing  that  lay  in  their  power  to  bring  him  into  con- 
tempt. But  if  we  consider  the  Greek  mythology  in  gene- 
ral, and  out  of  connection  with  this  prince  of  all  ancient 
poets,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact,  that 
it  was  not  only  defective  in  the  particular  moral  ideas  which 
it  unfolded,  but  was,  on  the  whole,  and  in  the  innermost 
principles  on  which  it  was  founded,  material,  inadequate, 
and  unworthy  of  the  divine  nature.  It  should  not  however 
be  forgot,  that  these  very  philophers,  who  indulged  them- 
selves so  freely  in  railing  against  the  poets  and  their  mytho- 
logy, had  themselves,  previous  to  the  time  of  Socrates, 
scarcely  ever  made  any  inquiries  into  the  proper  nature  of 
the  Deity,  and,  indeed,  very  seldom  advanced  farther  than 
certain  vague  and  indefinite  feelings  of  veneration  for  the 


GREEK  PHILOSOPHY.  45 

elemental  powers  of  the  physical  world ; — moreover,  from 
being  philosophers,  they  were  very  soon  converted  into 
sophists,  and  were,  in  that  character,  infinitely  more  dan- 
gerous, both  in  a  political  and  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  than 
any  of  the  old  poets  ever  were,  w^ith  all  their  ignorance  and 
simplicity. 

Not  only  the  poetry,  but  the  philosophy  of  the  ancients, 
had  its  origin  among  the  Asiatic  Greeks.  The  same  cli- 
mate which  produced  Homer  and  Herodotus,  gave  birth 
also  to  the  first  and  greatest  of  the  philosophers, — not  only 
to  Thales  and  Heraclitus,  who  founded  in  their  own  time 
the  Ionian  school,  properly  so  named ;  but  also  to  those  who 
extended  the  influence  of  its  doctrines  in  Magna  Grecia,  and 
among  the  southern  Italians, — as,  for  example,  the  poet 
Xenophanes,  and  the  institutor  of  the  great  learned  confe- 
deracy, Pythagoras.  We  are  all  accustomed  to  talk  with 
wonder  and  reverence  of  the  art  and  the  poetry  of  the  Greeks ; 
yet  perhaps  their  genius  appears  no  where  so  active,  so  in- 
ventive, and  so  rich  as  in  their  philosophy.  Even  their 
errors  are  instructive,  for  they  were  always  the  fruit  of  re- 
flection. They  had  no  beaten  path  of  truth  prepared  for 
them,  but  were  obliged  to  seek  out  and  beat  a  pathway  for 
themselves  ;  and  accordingly  they  are  best  able  to  teach  us 
how  far  men  can,  by  the  unassisted  power  of  their  own  na- 
ture, advance  in  the  inquiry  after  truth.  But  this  philoso- 
phy is  well  deserving  of  a  little  farther  consideration. 

It  was  the  custom  of  the  Ionian  philosophers  to  reverence 
one  or  other  of  the  elements  as  the  first  and  primary  prin- 
ciple of  nature — some  water,  as  Thales, — others  fire,  as 
Heraclitus.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  believed  that  they  meant 
all  this  in  a  mere  corporeal  acceptation.  They  recognized, 
it  is  probable,  under  the  name  of  the  liquid  element,  not  only 
the  nourishing  and  connecting  power  of  water,  but  also  the 
general  principle  of  perpetual  change  and  variety  in  nature. 
And  in  like  manner,  when  Heraclitus  said  that  fire  was  the 
origin  of  all  things,  he  did  not  surely  refer  merely  to  exter- 
nal and  visible  fire,  but  meant  rather  to  express  that  hidden 
heat,  that  internal  fire,  which  was  universally  considered  by 
the  ancients  as  the  peculiar  and  vivifjnng  power  in  every 
thing  that  lives.  Heraclitus,  the  founder  of  this  doctrine, 
seems  to  have  had  conceptions  of  a  nature  more  profund  and 


46  ANAXAGORAS. 

spiritual  than  any  of  his  brethren.  But  perhaps  the  inca- 
pacity of  all  these  philosophers  to  set  themselves  free  from, 
the  fetters  of  materialism,  may  be  best  illustrated  by  the  eX' 
ample  of  Anaxagoras.  This  philosopher  is  well  worthy  of 
mention,  for  he  was  the  first  before  Socrates  who  recognized 
the  existence  of  a  supreme  intelligence,  directing  and  go- 
verning the  whole  system  and  concerns  of  nature  and  the 
universe ;  and  yet  he  attempted  to  illuminate  the  world  by 
recurrence  to  those  minute  and  imperceptible  elemental 
atoms,  of  which,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  materialism, 
the  whole  universe  is  composed.  This  atomical  philosophy, 
which  accounts  for  the  creation  of  the  world  on  the  princi- 
ple of  mechanical  attraction,  was  very  early  reduced  to  the 
shape  of  a  regular  system  by  Leucippus  and  Democritus ; 
but  afterwards  it  became,  by  means  of  Epicurus,  as  preva- 
lent among  both  Greeks  and  Romans  as  it  ever  was  among 
the  moderns  of  the  eighteenth  century.  This  is  that  proper 
materialism  which  strikes  at  once  at  the  root  of  the  idea  of 
a  God. 

It  is  in  vain  to  suppose  that  these  were  mere  speculations, 
and  destitute  of  any  influence  on  active  life.  The  utter 
defectiveness  of  the  popular  faith  of  the  Greeks,  and  of  their 
philosophy,  previous  to  the  time  of  Socrates,  will  be  most 
evident,  if  we  direct  our  attention  to  the  opinions  which  they 
embraced  with  regard  to  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  That 
indistinct  and  gloomy  world  of  shades,  which  was  celebrated 
by  the  poets,  and  believed  in  by  the  common  people,  was  at 
the  best  a  mere  poetical  dream ;  and,  the  moment  reflection 
awakened,  either  sunk  into  doubt,  or  gave  place  to  total  in- 
credulity. In  the  mysteries,  it  is  true,  or  secret  societies, 
whose  influence  was  so  extensive  both  in  Egypt  and  in 
Greece,  some  more  accurate  and  stable  notions,  with  regard 
to  a  future  life,  appear  to  have  been  preserved  and  inculca- 
ted ;  but  these,  Avhatever  they  might  be,  were  carefully  con- 
fined to  the  small  circle  of  the  initiated.  Both  the  earlier 
and  later  philosophers  who  sought  to  establish  the  doctrine 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  had  in  general  nothing  far- 
ther in  view  than  the  indestructible  nature  of  that  intellec- 
tual principle  of  the  universe,  whereof,  according  to  their 
belief,  every  human  soul  formed  a  part;  they  had  no  con- 
ception of  any  such  thing  as  the  continuance  of  personal  ex- 


METEMPSYCHOSIS,  47 

istence.  That  doctrine — the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  properly  so  called — was  first  started,  and  first  ren- 
dered popular  among  their  philosophers  by  Pythagoras. 
Even  in  his  system,  indeed,  the  truth  was  mingled  with  a 
considerable  share  of  falsehood,  for  he  embraced,  in  its  full 
extent,  the  oriental  doctrine  of  Metempsychosis,  or  the  trans- 
migration of  souls  ;  yet,  as  it  is,  he  is,  even  in  this  respect,  su- 
perior to  all  the  other  old  philosophers  of  Greece,  and  is 
well  entitled  to  our  reverence,  both  as  a  discoverer  of  truth, 
and  as  a  benefactor  of  his  nation.  But  his  celebrated  society 
(whose  chief  aim  was  certainly  political  power,  and  whose 
principles  could  not  have  been  adopted  without  the  total 
overthrow  of  the  popular  belief,)  was  very  soon  dissolved ; 
and  after  that  time  the  state  of  philosophy  became  daily  more 
and  more  anarchical,  down  till  the  period  of  Socrates. 

The  contradiction  and  singularity  of  these  opinions,  in- 
vented and  defended  as  they  were  with  the  greatest  acute- 
ness,  and  given  to  the  world  with  the  highest  advantages  of 
diction ;  the  spirit  of  doubt  and  unbelief,  which  it  is  the  ten- 
dency of  such  opinions  to  spread  abroad ;  and  the  confusion 
of  all  ideas,  and  the  relaxation  of  all  principles  which 
naturally  follow  from  their  adoption,  were  perhaps  never 
displayed  in  all  the  fulness  of  their  destructive  influence,  so 
manifestly  as  then.  One  great  class  of  these  ancient  phi- 
losophers, however  their  opinions  might  differ  on  other 
matters,  agreed  in  one  thing, — that  they  all  regarded  nature 
only  on  the  side  of  the  mutability  and  variety  of  her  pro- 
ductions. "  Every  thing,"  said  they,  "  is  perpetually  chang- 
ing and  revolving  like  the  Avater  of  a  river."  So  far,  indeed, 
did  they  carry  this  principle,  that  they  refused  to  believe  in 
the  existence  of  any  thing  steadfast  and  enduring ;  they  de- 
nied that  there  could  be  any  thing  stable  in  being,  any  thing 
certain  in  knowledge,  any  thing  universally  useful  in  morals, 
in  other  words,  they  treated  as  a  fable  the  existence,  not  of 
God  alone,  but  of  speculative  truth,  and  practical  rectitude. 

Another  party,  who  held  fast  by  the  tenet  of  an  un- 
changeable unity  in  all  things,  fell  into  an  altogether  oppo- 
site opinion.  They  denied  the  possibility  of  any  mutability 
in  that  which  is,  and  were  thus  reduced  to  deny  the  real 
existence  of  the  sensible  world.  These  paradoxes  they  en- 
deavoured to  render  popular  by  the  highest   exertions  of 


48  SCEPTICAL  OPINIONS  OF  THE  GREEKS. 

dialectic  skill ;  and  in  so  far,  at  least,  they  were  successful 
in  their  attempt,  for  the  discussions  which  took  place  ren- 
dered doubt  and  uncertainty  even  more  common  than  be- 
fore. One  of  the  first  and  greatest  of  these  sophists  com- 
menced his  instructions  expressly  and  distinctly  with  the 
assertion, — that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  truth,  either  abso- 
lute or  relative;  that  even  if  there  were,  it  could  not  be 
within  the  reach  of  human  knowledge,  and  that  even  if  it 
were  known,  it  would  be  altogether  unprofitable.  It  would 
have  been  cruel,  indeed,  to  deny  this  inquirer  any  private 
consolation  which  his  doubt  could  afford  him,  if  such  had 
really  been  the  poor  and  unsatisfactory  result  of  a  diligent  and 
candid  investigation.  But  these  sophists  were  not  content 
to  enjoy  their  doubt  in  privacy ;  they  had  scholars  and  de- 
pendents in  every  district  of  Greece,  and  the  education  of 
the  noble  and  cultivated  classes  of  society  was,  for  a  season, 
entirely  in  their  hands.  Neither  was  the  termination  of 
their  sceptical  inquiries  always  candidly  stated ;  for  while 
some  were  honest  enough  to  confess  that  they  knew  nothing, 
there  was  no  want  of  other  sophists  who  had  the  impu- 
dence and  the  quackery  to  say,  that  they  knew  all  things, 
and  who  boldly  professed  themselves  to  be  masters  of  every 
art  and  of  every  science.  It  was,  at  all  events,  an  easy  mat- 
ter for  them  to  bring  young  men  to  such  a  pitch  of  accom- 
plishment, that  they  could,  by  means  of  a  few  turnings  and 
windings  of  sophistical  argumentation,  perplex  and  bewilder 
the  understandings  of  others  yet  more  inexperienced  than 
themselves, — and  believe  themselves  qualified  to  settle  every 
thing  by  the  rapid  exercise  of  their  own  more  cultivated 
genius,  much  better  than  had  ever  been  done  by  the  once 
reverenced,  but  now  despised  and  insulted,  wisdom  of  their 
forefathers.  In  these  schools,  it  was  not  merely  proposed 
by  way  of  an  exercise  of  ingenuity  and  acumen,  to  defend 
alternately  two  opposite  opinions  concerning  the  same  sub- 
ject, and  endeavour  to  lend  either,  according  to  pleasure,  the 
semblance  of  truth ;  the  regular  object  of  sophistical  am- 
bition was  to  defend  on  all  occasions  what  they  knew  to  be 
speculatively  or  practically  wrong ;  to  make  the  worse  ap- 
pear the  better  reason,  not  in  scholastic  disputation  only,  but 
in  active  life ;  and  to  forge  weapons  of  deceit  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  their  fellow-citizens.     With  a  bold  contempt  of  all 


DOCTRINES  OF  SOCRATES.  49 

those  moral  principles,  by  which,  according  to  them,  the 
weak  only  allow  themselves  to  be  conducted  and  deceived, 
but  which  they,  in  their  wisdom,  were  pleased  to  consider 
as  the  silly  prejudices  of  childishness  and  folly,  others  ex- 
pressly taught,  that  there  is  no  virtue  but  that  of  cunning  or 
of  power,  and  no  right  but  the  right  of  the  stronger,  and  the 
pleasure  of  him  who  has  the  rule.  In  these  schools,  not 
only  wag  ridicule  perpetually  cast  on  the  popular  belief, 
which,  with  all  its  manifold  defectiveness,  was  still  closely 
connected  with  many  feelings  of  a  noble  and  dignified  mo- 
rality, which  should  have  been  carefully  reverenced  and 
preserved,  so  long  as  men  had  nothing  better  to  be  substi- 
tuted in  their  room — not  only  did  they  heap  together  loose, 
vain,  and  despicable  dogmas  concerning  the  world  and  its 
first  cause ;  they  denied,  without  hesitation,  the  very  exist- 
ence of  a  Deity,  and  annihilated  within  their  bosoms  all 
perception  either  of  truth  or  of  goodness. 

Through  the  prevailing  influence  of  these  opinions,  the 
political  purity  of  Grecian  governments,  which  had  long 
stood  in  jeopardy  on  the  brink  of  an  abyss  of  democratic 
lawlessness,  was  at  last  entirely  overthrown :  and  sophistry 
had  the  merit  of  creating  a  spirit  of  corruption  and  debase- 
ment, which  neither  party-strife,  nor  protracted  wars,  nor 
foreign  bribery,  nor  bloody  revolutions,  had  been  able  to 
produce. 

In  the  midst  of  this  universal  atheism  Socrates  arose,  and 
taught  the  existence  of  a  God  in  a  manner  altogether  prac- 
tical. He  encountered  the  sophists  on  their  OAvn  ground, 
and  exposed  to  all  the  world  the  fallacy  and  nothingness  of 
their  opinions :  he  demonstrated  to  men,  that  virtue  and 
goodness  are  not  empty  names,  and  convinced  them,  in  spite 
of  their  prejudices,  that  in  their  ovni  hearts  are  seated  many 
pure  and  noble  principles,  derived  at  first  from  a  superior 
being,  and  giving  birth  to  perpetual  aspirations  after  some 
state  of  things  more  analogous  to  the  dignity  of  their  orig- 
inal. He  laid  hold  of  the  best  feelings  of  our  nature,  and 
linked  them  all  with  the  cause  of  his  philosophy.  By  these 
means  Socrates  became  the  second  founder  and  restorer  of 
a  more  noble  system  of  thinking  among  the  Greeks,  at  the 
expense  of  falling  himself  a  sacrifice  to  his  zeal,  and  to  the 
truth.     But  his  death  is  so  remarkable  an  incident  in  the 

5 


50  POLITICAL    INFLUENCE    OF    SOCRATES. 

history  of  mankind,   that  we   may  well   pause  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  bestow  on  it  some  farther  consideration. 

The  solitary  charge  Avhich  was  made  against  him,  that 
he  was  guilty  of  teaching  the  existence  of  a  new  and  un- 
known Godhead,  and  of  despising  the  old  and  publicly  re- 
cognized deities  of  the  popular  creed,  was  certainly  so  far 
founded  in  truth,  and  is  most  honourable  to  the  fame  of  So- 
crates. Had  the  Socratic  mode  of  thinking,  which  was  in 
every  respect  new  in  Greece,  ever  gone  beyond  the  circle 
of  his  own  friends  and  disciples,  and  become  the  ruling  one 
throughout  the  country,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
whole  system  of  private  life  among  the  ancients,  and,  at 
least,  a  great  part  of  their  popular  belief,  must  have  either 
been  entirely  changed,  or  undergone  a  very  considerable 
modification.  This  must  have  been  thoroughly  felt  by  the 
narrow-minded  bigots  of  the  ancient  faith,  and  is  quite  suffi- 
cient to  account  for  the  deadly  hatred  which  they  all  bore 
to  Socrates,  and  the  readiness  with  which  they  endeavoured 
to  confound  his  great  name  with  that  of  the  profligate  and 
pernicious  sophists  whose  principal  enemy  he  was.  The 
charge,  nevertheless,  was  in  a  great  measure  a  mere  pre- 
text, and  the  true  ground  of  their  hatred  lay  in  the  nature, 
not  of  the  philosophical,  but  of  the  political  tenets  which 
Socrates  maintained. 

In  every  situation  of  his  life,  Socrates  had  shewn  himself 
to  be  an  excellent  citizen,  and  a  zealous  patriot;  but  his 
opinions,  or  at  least  those  of  the  greater  part  of  his  scholars, 
were  openly  inimical  to  democracy.  The  manner  in  which 
both  Äenophon  and  Plato  often  praise — almost  with  the 
zeal  and  warmth  of  political  partisans — ^the  constitution  of 
Sparta,  and  that  of  every  state  in  whose  institutions  the  aris- 
tocratical  principle  was  predominant,  could  have  appeared 
only  in  the  light  of  a  disgusting  want  of  national  feeling,  to 
the  bigoted  democrats  of  their  native  city.  Besides,  all  the 
enemies  of  democracy  who  proceeded  from  the  school  of 
Socrates,  were  far  from  bearing  characters  so  noble  and  re- 
proachless  as  Zenophon  and  Plato.  Even  Critias  himself 
had  been  a  disciple  of  Socrates, — Critias,  one  of  the  tyrants 
who  ruled  Athens  by  means  of  Spartan  influence,  and  who 
indeed  reduced  their  country  to  the  state  of  a  mere  depen- 
dency on  the  government  of  Lacedaemon.     And  to  this  very 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  SOCRATIC  OPINIONS.  51 

circumstance  it  is,  that  one  ancient  writer  attributes,  and 
with  no  small  appearance  of  justice,  the  primary  cause  of 
the  fate  of  Socrates. 

It  is  impossible  to  explain,  in  any  satisfactory  method,  by 
what   means   Socrates   reached  those   peculiar    principles 
which  he  professed.     With  the  more  ancient  doctrines  of 
his  countrymen  of  the  Ionian  school,  he  was  well  acquaint- 
ed ;  but  he  seems  to  have  considered  them  as,  on  the  whole, 
inadequate  and  unsatisfying-.     On  several  remarkable  occa- 
sions of  his  life,  he  had,  according  to  his  own  account,  re- 
course to  a  D^MON,  under  whose  guidance  and  tuition  he 
professed  himself  uniformly  to  act :  but  whether  he  meant 
something  of  a  nature  still  more  elevated,  we  have  no  means 
of  deciding.     It  is  equally  out  of  our  power  to  ascertain 
whether  his  private  opinions  pointed  at  a  total  overturn,  or 
only  at  a  partial  modification,  and  more  rational  interpreta- 
tion of  the  principles  of  the  popular  belief     He  appears  to 
have  been  well  acquainted  with  ail  the  doctrines  inculcated 
in  the  mysterious  societies  of  his  day.     It  is  indeed  true, 
that  he  was  far  from  being  altogether  divested  of  certain 
opinions   and   principles,   which   the   philosophers   of  the 
eighteenth  century  do  not  hesitate  to  rank  in  the  same  class 
of  infidelity,  with  the  opinions  of  those  all-knowing  and  all- 
doubting  beings  against  whom  Socrates  was  never  weary 
of  testifying.     A  single  example  will  be  enough  to  shew, 
with  what  unfairness  and  injustice  this  part  of  his  character 
has  been  treated  by  some  of  these  writers.     One  of  their 
chief  objections  to  him  is  founded  on  the  reply  w^hich  he 
made  to  a  question  put  to  him  by  one  of  his  friends,  on  the 
evening  of  his  death.     "  Is  there  nothing  more  which  you 
wish  us  to  do?"    said   the   friend. — "Nothing,"  answered 
Socrates,  "  except  that  I  wish  you  to  offer  a  cock  to  ^scu- 
lapius."     So  then,  say  these  modern  critics,  the  last  mo- 
ment of  his  life  was  spent  in  commanding  a  mark  of  respect 
to  be  paid  to  that  superstition,  with  whose  worthlessness  he 
must  have  been  perfectly  acquainted;  or  if  it  was  a  jest 
which  he  uttered,  surely  jesting  was  ill-suited  for  a  moment 
so  solemn.     Perhaps  if  they  had  looked  a  little  deeper,  they 
might  have  found  a  more  rational   explanation.     By  the 
constant  practice  of  antiquity,  when  any  person  had  recover- 
ed from  an  illness,  he  offered  a  cock  to  iEsculapius.     Now 


52  XENOPHON. 

when  Socrates  expressed  his  wish  to  make  a  similar  sacri- 
fice, it  is  probable  that  he  alluded  to  a  notion  which  he  him- 
self entertained,  and  which  has  been  illustrated  at  great 
length  by  several  of  his  disciples, — ^the  notion  that  the  pre- 
sent life  is  given  us  only  to  prepare  us  for  another ;  or  ac- 
cording to  the  expression  of  antiquity,  that  we  may  learn  to 
die.  Besides,  Socrates  has  often  expressly  said  that  he  con- 
sidered human  life  in  general  (and  without  doubt  the  state 
of  the  world  in  his  day  must  have  eminently  tended  to  make 
him  so  consider  it)  in  the  light  of  an  imprisonment  of  the 
soul,  or  of  a  malady  under  which  the  nobler  spirit  is  con- 
demned to  linger,  until  it  be  set  free  and  purified  by  the 
healing  touch  of  death.  To  terminate  death  by  suicide  was 
held  by  Socrates,  if  not  the  first,  at  least  the  most  distinctly 
of  all  the  ancient  philosophers,  as  a  thing  not  permitted — 
as  a  crime  against  God  and  against  ourselves.  He  made 
no  attempt  to  emancipate  himself,  by  his  o^vn  hand,  from 
the  confinement  and  the  malady  of  life.  Perhaps  he  did 
not  imagine,  however  much  he  must  have  been  aware  of 
the  true  dignity  both  of  his  own  character  and  of  the  cause 
of  truth  and  virtue  in  which  he  suffered,  that  that  character 
and  that  cause  would  in  after  ages  derive  new  reverence 
and  dignity  from  the  example  of  resolution  and  steadfastness 
which  he  set  before  his  friends  and  disciples  in  the  manner 
of  his  death. 

In  order  to  give  a  general  view  of  the  Greek  philosophy, 
I  have  selected  only  a  few  points,  out  of  the  great  mass  of 
their  opinions ;  it  has  been  my  chief  object  to  select  those 
principally  which  may  be  traced  in  works  not  didactic,  but 
historical — which  have  exerted  the  greatest  influence  on 
the  affairs  of  active  and  political  life,  and  from  that  circum- 
stance are  the  most  interesting-  as  well  as  the  most  intelliofi- 
ble.  I  now  return  to  my  short  survey  of  their  most  cele- 
brated writers. 

Xenophon  is  entitled,  by  his  beautiful  style  alone,  to  take 
his  place  by  the  side  of  the  best  authors  of  antiquity.  As  a 
writer  of  history,  he  surpasses  Thucydides,  in  so  far  that  his 
narrative  is  more  light  and  clear ;  and  that  the  feeling  with 
which  his  story  is  animated,  is  rnore  simple  and  natural.  Yet 
so  much  is  he  inferior  both  in  depth  and  in  dignity  of  reflec- 
tion, that,  tender  and  elegant  as  he  is,  we  almost  universally 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  CYROPJEDIA.  53 

give  the  preference  to  the  severe  austerity  of  his  more  manly 
rival.  As  a  philosophic  writer,  in  his  account  of  the  con- 
versation of  Socrates,  he  falls  infinitely  short  of  Plato,  not 
only  in  profoundness  of  thought,  but  in  richness  of  illustra- 
tion, and  in  the  arrangement  of  his  materials.  His  political 
romance  upon  the  life  of  Cyrus  is  deserving  of  much  notice, 
because  it  is  the  only  work  of  that  kind  which  has  come 
down  to  us  from  the  ancients.  The  work  is  composed,  in 
almost  equal  parts,  of  history,  poetry,  and  ethics.  But  al- 
though each  of  the  elements  may  be  highly  beautiful  when 
taken  by  itself,  the  manner  in  which  they  are  mingled  to- 
gether in  the  Cyropaedia,  appears  to  me,  I  must  confess, 
very  far  from  being  a  fit  subject  of  imitation. 

Although  both  Xenophon  and  several  other  writers  of 
the  school  of  Socrates,  were  conspicuous  examples  of  simpli- 
city and  true  beauty  in  composition,  the  sophistical  rhetoric, 
nevertheless,  continued  to  be  almost  universally  prevalent 
among  the  Greeks.  Isocrates  may  furnish  us  with  abun- 
dant evidence  of  the  wide  extent  to  which  that  affected  sys- 
tem of  language  and  expression  had  been  adopted  by  this 
ingenious  and  spiritual  people :  how  they  could  endure  to 
hear  long  harangues  upon  particular  points  or  circum- 
stances, selected  at  the  mere  caprice  of  the  speaker,  and  of- 
ten not  only  inapplicable,  but  utterly  useless  and  unprofita- 
ble, to  the  total  exclusion  of  every  thing  which  might  really 
bear  upon  the  merits  of  the  case :  how,  in  short,  they  could 
make  their  reason  altogether  subservient  to  their  pleasure, 
and  listen  to  the  discussion  of  matters  the  most  important  to 
themselves,  whether  as  individuals  or  as  a  nation,  with  feel- 
ings which  might  have  better  suited  a  drama  or  a  show,  as 
if  the  only  matter  on  which  they  were  to  decide,  had  been 
the  relative  merits  of  eloquence  or  wit,  in  those  who  were 
so  vain  as  to  address  them.  There  is  an  unvarying  appear- 
ance of  artifice  in  the  system  of  speaking  and  writing,  which 
was  at  this  period  in  fashion.  Every  word  is  laboriously 
selected  and  arranged ;  every  syllable  is  placed  with  refe- 
rence, not  only  to  its  significance,  but  to  its  sound ;  every 
period  is  rounded  with  reiterated  touches,  and  the  whole  is 
polished  with  indefatigable  care.  Yet  this  taste  in  compo- 
sition, this  extreme  refinement  of  language,  may  be  of  con- 
siderable use  to  us :  for  we  are  but  too  apt  to  fall  into  an 

5* 


54  PLATO  AND  ARISTOTLE. 

altogether  opposite  error,  and  to  destroy  or  diminish  the 
effect  of  our  reasonings,  by  a  very  culpable  inattention  to 
the  accuracy  of  our  expression.  The  art  which  is  employ- 
ed in  writing  should  indeed  be  kept,  as  much  as  possible, 
out  of  view.  The  consideration  of  the  labour  which  must 
have  been  employed,  is  sometimes  distressing  to  us  even  in 
works  of  sculpture ;  yet,  in  general,  we  allow  ourselves  to 
be  delighted  with  an  inanimate  statue,  long  before  we  take 
time  to  reflect  on  the  toil  with  which  it  has  been  formed. 
But  the  case  is  widely  different  here ;  the  appearance  of 
labour  in  a  piece  of  writing,  is,  instantly,  and  invariably, 
disagreeable.  We  know  that  a  poem  or  an  oration  is  not 
to  be  hewn  out  of  stone,  and  we  expect  to  see  in  it  not  barely 
a  skilful  application  of  art,  but  something  free,  lively,  and 
having  influence  upon  life. 

Plato  and  Aristotle,  whom  I  consider  in  this  place  merely 
as  writers,  are  specimens,  at  once,  of  the  widest  extent  of 
Grecian  knowledge,  and  of  the  greatest  depth  and  dignity 
of  reflection,  which  Avere  ever  attained  by  the  Grecian  mind. 
The  first  has  treated  of  philosophy,  in  narratives  and  dia- 
logues, with  all  the  fervour  of  an  artist ;  the  method  of  the 
other  is  more  scientific  in  the  strictest,  as  well  as  in  the 
widest  sense  of  that  word :  he  has  not  confined  himself  to 
philosophy  alone,  he  has  treated  of  natural  science  also,  and 
natural  history ;  he  has  written  on  politics,  on  history,  and 
on  criticism,  and,  in  fact,  reduced  to  a  system  all  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Greeks. 

In  the  narrative  and  poetical  passages  of  his  dialogues, 
above  all,  on  account  of  his  language  and  skill  in  composi- 
tion, the  general  voice  of  his  cotemporaries,  as  well  as  of 
posterity,  has  set  Plato  at  the  head  of  all  the  prose  writers 
of  antiquity.  The  most  striking  peculiarity  of  his  style  is 
its  unrivalled  variety  ;  for  it  adapts  itself  with  equal  ease  to 
the  artificial  abstractions  and  hair-drawn  distinctions,  into 
whose  labyrinths  he  pursues  his  enemies  the  sophists,  and 
to  the  poetical,  nay,  the  often  dithyambic  boldness,  with 
which  he  sets  forth  the  rich  fables  and  inventions  of  his  own 
philosophy.  Considered  merely  as  works  of  narration, 
Pheedon  and  the  Republick  are  entitled  to  be  classed  with 
the  most  illustrious  specimen^  of  that  species  of  writing  to 
which  Grecian  genius  has  given  birth. 


REVIVAL  OF  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY.  65 

Both  of  these  mighty  intellects,  Aristotle  and  Plato,  have 
for  two  thousand  years  exerted  a  commanding  influence  on 
the  character  of  the  human  mind,  both  in  Europe  and  in 
Asia.  But  to  this  I  shall  call  your  attention  with  more 
propriety,  in  some  other  place.  Aristotle  is  characterized, 
as  a  writer,  by  purity  and  elegance,  which  began,  in  his 
time,  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  first  qualities  of  style.  Al- 
though Plato  has  always  been  considered  as  a  perfect  model 
both  in  the  power  and  in  the  construction  of  his  language, 
and,  in  general,  as  a  specimen  of  the  highest  point  of  refine- 
ment to  which  Grecian,  or  more  properly  speaking,  Attic 
genius,  ever  attained,  yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  with  regard 
to  works  of  erudition,  and  the  development  and  acuteness  of 
criticism,  but  above  all,  with  regard  to  every  department  of 
historical  composition,  the  influence  of  Aristotle  has  been 
more  determinate,  as  well  as  more  extensive,  than  that  of 
Plato.  The  immediate  successor  of  Aristotle,  Theophras- 
tus, — the  same  whose  descriptions  of  characters  have  come 
do^vn  to  us, — and  all  the  early  philosophers  of  the  Platonic 
school,  were  men  of  universal  refinement,  and  their  writings 
were  uniformly  composed  in  a  style  at  once  elevated  and 
beautiful.  The  philosophic  sects  which  sprung  up  at  a  later 
period  in  Greece,  appear  to  great  disadvantage  when  com- 
pared, in  this  respect,  with  their  predecessors.  The  follow- 
ers of  Epicurus  make  use  of  a  careless,  dull,  and  drawling 
mode  of  composition,  while  the  writings  of  the  Stoics  are 
still  more  offensive  on  account  of  the  bombast  pedantry,  and 
technical  barbarisms  with  which  they  are  loaded.  The  de- 
cline of  the  genius  of  the  Greeks  may  be  traced,  through  all 
its  stages,  in  the  corresponding  debasement  of  their  lan- 
guage. 

The  revival  of  philosophy,  which  was  effected  by  Socra- 
tes, was  very  far  from  extending  its  influence  to  the  whole 
of  the  intellectual  character  of  the  Greeks.  This  happy 
revolution  was  confined  to  a  few  particular  departments  of 
thinking,  and  these  were  daily  becoming  more  and  more 
unconnected  with  the  general  spirit  ofthat  degraded  people. 
On  the  poetry  of  Greece,  to  which  we  must  now  return,  it 
exerted  no  influence  whatever ;  that  depended,  so  long  as  it 
deserved  the  name  of  poetry,  on  the  mythology,  the  popular 
belief,  the  traditional  tales,  and  the  ancient  modes  of  life  of 


56  DECLINE  OF  THE  TRAGIC  ART. 

the  country ;  after  the  national  manners  had  become  relaxed 
and  corrupted,  it  exhibited  merely  a  faint  echo  of  what  it 
had  formerly  been,  in  the  hands  of  those  great  and  creative 
geniuses,  who  have  already  passed  under  our  review.  But 
although  in  this  later  poetry  we  can  see  only  the  reflection 
of  its  ancient  splendour ;  yet  even  the  productions  of  this  de- 
clining age  are  rich  in  particular  beauties,  and  exhibit  many 
glorious  traces  of  that  peculiar  poetical  spirit,  which  seems, 
in  happier  times,  to  have  been  almost  inseparable  from  the 
physical  temperament  of  the  Greeks. 

The  first  traces  of  decline  in  the  art  of  composing  trage- 
dies, may  be  discovered,  without  difficulty,  in  the  writings 
of  Euripides ;  rich  as  these  are  in  pathetic  representations, 
and  in  isolated, — above  all,  in  lyrical  beauties.  The  last 
among  the  great  tragedians  of  antiquity,  appears  less  perfect 
than  his  predecessors  in  many  respects ;  but  his  principal 
defect,  certainly,  consists  in  a  want  of  unity  and  connection, 
between  the  different  parts  of  which  his  works  are  composed. 
I  have  already  mentioned  that  the  tragedy  of  the  ancients 
arose,  by  degrees,  out  of  a  peculiar  national  chorus,  and  fes- 
tival song  of  mythological  import,  which  was  usually  per- 
formed in  certain  solemnities  of  the  Greek  religion.  The 
chorus  forms  in  this  manner  an  inseparable  part  of  the  an- 
cient tragedy,  whose  composition  is  for  the  same  reason,  in 
its  whole  shape  and  substance,  strictly  allied  to  lyrical  po- 
etry: a  circumstance  which  has  been  very  powerfully  felt, 
by  those  poets,  in  particular,  who  have  endeavoured  to  imi- 
tate, in  modern  times,  the  peculiarities  of  the  Grecian  drama. 
Perfect  harmony  and  agreement  between  the  choral  songs, 
and  the  dramatic  part — strictly  so  called,  forms,  in  tragedies 
composed  after  these  models,  a  requisite  altogether  indispen- 
sable. Both  are  in  the  most  entire  unison  in  the  works  of 
Sophocles :  but  in  Euripides,  the  choral  interludes  assume  a 
character  widely  different ;  they  seem  to  be  introduced  into 
his  plays,  merely  by  way  of  compliment  to  established  cus- 
tom ;  and,  so  far  from  being  occupied  with  the  events  of  the 
drama,  are  rendered,  in  general,  vehicles  for  what  has  often 
no  apparent  connection  with  them, — the  poet's  own  private 
opinions  concerning  the  mythology  and  philosophy  of  his 
country.  They  abound,  indeed,  in  lyrical  beauties,  which 
may  be  exquisite  and  delightful  in  themselves ;  but  these  are 


MENANDER.  57 

perpetually  intermingled  with  formal  dogmas,  which  the 
poet  had  gathered  from  the  schools  of  the  Sophists,  and  with 
long,  pedantic,  and  ill-placed  disquisitions,  which  seem  to 
have  no  purpose  in  view,  but  an  ostentatious  display  of  his 
skill  as  a  rhetorician.  In  consequence  of  this  harmony  be- 
ing disturbed,  and  the  lyrical  interludes  no  longer  forming 
an  essential  part  of  the  piece,  the  dialogue  itself,  which  now 
composes  the  whole  of  the  tragedy,  appears  at  once  poor 
and  unsatisfactory.  To  remedy,  in  some  measure,  this  de- 
fect, Euripides  has  recourse  to  a  perplexing  intricacy  of 
plot,  to  perpetual  surprises  and  recognitions,  to  double  ca- 
tastrophes, and  to  wiredrawn  intrigues, — which  increase,  in- 
deed, the  amusement  of  the  spectacle,  but  can  ill  be  recon- 
ciled with  the  true  nature  and  dignity  of  tragic  poetry. 

The  last  Athenian  poet,  who  represented  human  life  in 
a  manner  new  and  peculiar  to  himself,  was  Menander — 
the  inventor,  or  at  least,  the  perfecter,  of  the  new  comedy^ 
as  it  was  called.  His  method  of  composition,  although  his 
own  works  have  almost  entirely  perished,  is  in  some  mea- 
sure known  to  us,  by  means  of  the  translations  or  imita- 
tions of  the  Roman  poet  Terence.  The  dramatic  poetry 
of  the  Greeks,  which  had  begun,  in  iEschylus,  with  the 
heroic  greatness  and  marvels  of  fabulous  antiquity,  had  now 
reached  the  last  stage  of  its  history ;  it  had  been  gradually 
descending  from  the  lofty  images  of  a  poetical  past^  towards 
the  more  humble  concerns  of  the  actual  present ;  and  it 
now  terminated  its  career,  with  a  spiritual  and  lively  repre- 
sentation of  all  the  circumstances,  characters,  situations,  and 
intrigues,  which  are  to  be  met  with  in  the  every  day  life  of 
undignified  men.  Whether  the  representation  of  common 
life,  or,  in  other  w^ords,  the  popular  comedy  of  Menander, 
belongs,  properly  speaking,  to  the  class  of  poetry,  was  a 
question  much  agitated  among  the  ancient  critics.  Many 
determine  it  in  the  negative,  because,  according  to  their 
opinion,  not  only  versification,  but  mythology,  is  necessary 
to  the  existence  of  poetry.  But,  according  to  our  ideas  of 
poetry,  the  lively  representation  of  human  life,  although 
this  should  be  altogether  unaccompanied  with  the  marvel- 
lous, or  even  Avith  the  elevated,  can  in  no  way  be  separated 
from  the  region  of  poetry.  According  to  modern  critics, 
the  first  and  original  end  of  all  poetry, — if  we  consider  it 


58  ESSENCE    OF    POETRY. 

as  it  is  to  have  influence  on  men  and  on  life,  and,  in  one 
word,  as  it  is  to  be  national, — is,  to  preserve  and  embellish 
the  peculiar  traditions  and  recollections  of  the  people;  and 
to  preserve  alive,  in  the  memories  of  men,  the  magnanimity 
and  greatness  of  ages  that  are  gone  by.  The  peculiar 
sphere  of  this  poetry  is  epic  narrative,  where  there  is  the 
utmost  scope  for  the  introduction  of  the  marvellous,  and 
where  the  poet  cannot  move  a  step  without  the  assistance  of 
mythology.  But  a  second  end  of  poetry  is,  to  place  before 
our  eyes  a  clear  and  speaking  picture  of  common  life.  This 
may  certainly  be  done  in  many  modes  of  writing ;  but  most 
powerfully,  without  doubt,  in  the  drama.  Poetry,  how- 
ever, such  as  deserves  the  name,  can  never  consist  entirely 
in  representations  of  external  life ;  it  must  always  be  inter- 
mingled with  something  of  a  higher  nature,  and  have  for 
its  object  the  intellect  and  feeling  of  ^vhich  that  life  is  the 
symbol.  Perhaps  it  might  even  be  said  that  the  essence 
of  poetry,  as  directed  to  this  second  purpose,  consists,  in 
truth,  in  this,  at  first  sight,  unessential  element  of  higher 
and  more  refined  feeling,  with  which  the  Avhole  substance 
of  the  composition  is  apparently  diversified,  but  really  in- 
spired. This  feeling  and  inspiration  form,  indeed,  a  con- 
stituent part  of  all  poetry ;  but  in  proportion  as  they  come 
to  be  predominant  qualities,  the  compositions  in  which  they 
are  embodied,  approach  nearer  to  the  nature  of  lyrical 
poetry. 

The  essence  of  all  poetry  may  be  said  to  consist  in  three 

things, INVENTION,     EXPRESSION,     INSPIRATION.       In    a 

great  inventive  genius,  the  other  two  elements,  expression 
and  inspiration  can  scarcely  be  absent.  But  without  any 
creative  or  inventive  power,  properly  so  called, — most  cer- 
tainly, without  any  admixture  of  the  marvellous, — a  work 
of  intellect  and  language  may,  by  the  power  of  expression 
alone,  which  it  displays,  or  by  the  inspiration  with  which 
it  is  animated,  fulfil  the  ends,  and  be  entitled  to  the  name, 
of  poetry. 

Menander  was  the  last  original  poet  of  Athens  who  repre- 
sented human  life,  and  whose  writings  exerted  their  influ- 
ence on  human  afl^airs.  If  we  consider  his  comedies  as  the 
conclusion  of  Attic  literature,  the  whole  period  during  which 


DEFECTS    OF    POETS.  59 

that  literature  existed,  reckoning  from  the  time  of  Solon, 
does  not  extend  beyond  three  centuries. 

The  poets  who  arose  at  an  after  period,  when  the  lan- 
guage of  Greece  had  become  known  over  the  greater  part 
of  the  w^orld,  by  means  of  the  conquests  of  Alexander,  and 
who  attached  themselves,  for  the  most  part,  to  the  court  of 
the  Egyptian  Ptolemies,  are  only  to  be  considered  as  glean- 
ers, who  came  after  the  rich  harvest  of  Greek  poetry  had 
been  already  gathered  in.  These  courtly  literati, — the 
academicians  and  librarians  of  Alexandria, — have,  how- 
ever, been  of  much  service  in  the  world,  in  consequence  of 
the  labour  which  they  bestowed  on  preserving  entire  the 
purity  and  clearness  of  the  Greek  language ;  as  well  as  of 
the  erudition  and  criticism  which  are  embodied  in  their 
own  works.  As  poets,  they  have  all  the  defects  into  which 
learned  poets  are  apt  to  fall ;  their  mode  of  expression  is 
rarely  unaffected,  and  very  often  altogether  obscure.  Those 
of  their  number  who  attempted  epic  poetry,  or,  in  general, 
who  treated  of  subjects  connected  with  mythology,  are  at 
least  valuable  on  this  account,  that  their  works  have  mainly 
contributed  towards  enabling  us,  in  modern  times,  to  under- 
stand the  allusions,  and  feel  the  force  of  the  more  ancient 
poets.  It  is,  for  instance,  extremely  fortunate  for  us,  (es- 
pecially as  the  writings  of  so  many  older  poets  who  handled 
the  same  fable  have  perished,)  that  the  chivalric  expedition 
of  the  Argonauts  forms  the  subject  of  one  of  the  most  ele- 
gant of  these  later  poets, — Apollonius.  In  consequence  of 
the  immense  profusion  of  ancient  poems  which  were  at  that 
time  extant,  it  was  perhaps  easy  for  these  Alexandrians  to 
penetrate  into  the  original  meaning  and  connection  of  the 
mythological  fictions,  more  deeply  than  had  ever  been  con- 
sistent either  with  the  views  or  the  opportunities  of  the  nar- 
rative poets  of  the  flourishing  era.  Callimachus,  in  par- 
ticular, was  conspicuous  for  the  profound  knowledge  which 
he  possessed  of  the  ancient  traditions  of  Greece ;  mythology 
was  the  exclusive  subject  of  his  poetry,  and  he  often  treated 
it  with  the  true  fire  of  a  poet.  That  he  was  by  no  means 
deficient  in  this,  is  indeed  evident  from  the  Avritings  of  the 
enthusiastic  Propertius,  who  made  him  his  model  in  the  com- 
position of  his  elegies.  It  was  at  this  period  very  common  to 
treat  of  mythological  events  in  a  formal  manner,  collecting 


60  OVID^S    METAMORPHOSES. 

all  the  fictions  of  a  similar  class  into  the  same  work.  Nothing, 
however,  could  be  more  vain ;  for  there  is,  in  truth,  no  sort 
of  connection  between  many  of  these  inventions.  They  are 
often  various  editions  of  the  same  fable ;  and  to  arrange  them 
in  a  consecutive  order,  could  only  be  accomplished  by  means 
of  such  artificial  omissions,  and  unnatural  interlacings,  as 
are  to  be  met  with  in  the  Metamorphoses  of  Ovid. 

It  has  every  where  been  the  fate  of  poetry,  in  its  decline, 
to  be  more  and  more  taken  away  from  its  proper  subjects, 
and  applied  to  matters  altogether  incapable  of  poetical  illus- 
tration. It  requires  no  great  acuteness  to  see,  that  scientific 
astronomy  is  a  subject  of  this  kind ;  and  that  a  dissertation 
on  some  particular  department  of  botany,  or  a  series  of 
medical  lectures,  although  composed  in  verse,  can  never 
form  a  poem.  It  is  evident  that  the  whole  body  of  this 
learned  poetry  which  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  Alex- 
andrian age,  belongs  to  a  false  and  utterly  artificial  class  of 
compositions.  The  moderns  should  have  been  the  more 
careful  to  avoid  imitating  these  productions,  that  such  sub- 
jects are  even  more  difficult  to  be  handled  in  a  poetical 
manner  now,  than  they  were  in  the  time  of  the  Greeks. 
In  the  first  place,  the  Greeks  of  a  more  early  period  had 
applied  didactic  poetry  to  a  great  number  of  subjects  entirely 
scientific  in  their  nature,  not  with  the  design  of  displaying 
their  skill  in  the  treatment  of  difficult  and  repulsive  mate- 
rials, but  for  the  real  purpose  of  communicating  knowledge ; 
at  a  time  when  prose  writing  was  either  entirely  unknovra, 
or  in  a  state  so  unpolished  as  not  to  be  a  fit  vehicle  for  gen- 
eral information,  or  not  so  easy  for  the  authors  themselves 
as  the  hexameter  verse.  Their  scientific  poetry  was  there- 
fore unaffected  in  its  origin,  and  proceeded  from  the  natural 
audacity  of  the  Grecian  intellect;  a  circumstance  which 
must  have  been  of  great  use  to  the  artificial  poets  who  treat- 
ed of  scientific  subjects  at  a  later  period.  The  mythology 
of  the  Greeks,  moreover,  embraced  the  whole  visible  world 
-within  the  circle  of  its  bold  personifications  and  delightful 
fables ;  so  that  nothing,  in  truth,  could  be  imagined,  which 
was  not  connected  in  some  manner,  with  these  beautiful 
fictions,  and  thus  placed  within  the  proper  province  of  an- 
cient poetry.  Even  in  treating  of  a  botanical  or  medical 
subject,  innumerable  circumstances  must  have  occurred  to  a 


THE  IDYLLS  OF  THEOCRITUS.  61 

Grecian  poet,  which  might  give  him  an  opportunity  of  bor- 
rowing poetical  illustrations  from  the  world  of  fables ;  and 
of  introducing,  without  any  appearance  of  stiffness  or  con- 
straint, those  episodes  which  formed,  in  truth,  the  principal 
charm  of  his  composition,  but  which  must  always  be  far- 
fetched and  artificial  in  the  writings  of  a  modern. 

There  is  one  species  of  poetry  invented  at  this  period, 
which  is  much  more  agreeable  to  our  taste ;  because  it  is 
not  a  mere  display  of  art  and  imitation,  but  professes  to  set 
before  us  the  peculiarities  of  a  particular  mode  of  life.  I 
mean  the  bucolic  and  pastoral  poetry ;  the  Idylls  of  Theo- 
critus, and  other  ancient  writers  of  the  same  class.  The 
country  life  certainly  abounds  in  circumstances  susceptible 
of  poetical  embellishment ;  but,  I  confess,  I  can  perceive  no 
good  reason,  why  it  should  be  considered  in  an  isolated 
manner,  and  abstracted  from  its  due  situation  in  that  general 
picture  of  the  world  and  of  human  life,  which  it  is  the  pro- 
vince of  poetry  to  unfold.  Let  us  reflect  for  a  moment  on 
these  passages  in  the  heroic  poems  of  antiquity,  or  in  the 
chivalric  romances  of  the  moderns,  which  afford  us  glimpses 
of  the  simplicity  and  repose  of  rural  manners, — their  simpli- 
city appears  still  more  innocent,  and  their  repose  still  more 
peaceful,  from  the  situation  in  which  they  are  placed, — in  the 
midst  of  the  guilty  tumult  of  wars,  and  the  fierce  passions  of 
heroes.  Here  every  thing  appears  in  its  true  and  natural 
connection;  and  the  poetry  is  as  varied,  as  the  world  and 
the  men  which  it  professes  to  represent.  The  cutting  off  of 
rural  life,  and  making  the  description  of  it  a  separate  de- 
partment of  writing,  has  led  poets  into  perpetual  tautologies 
and  repetitions,  and  induced  the  more  ambitious  of  them  to 
have  recourse  to  the  most  unnatural  exaggerations.  It  is 
very  singular  that  this  species  of  writing  should  have  always 
been  cultivated  and  popular,  only  in  ages  of  great  social  re- 
finement. The  excess  of  refiriement  in  the  life  of  cities,  has 
been  the  means  of  leading  us  back  to  nature  and  the  coun- 
try. Most  Idylls,  indeed,  betray  their  origin ;  and  it  is  too  often 
quite  evident,  that  the  shepherds  and  shepherdesses  whom 
they  represent,  are,  in  fact,  gentlemen  and  ladies  in  disguise. 
In  Theocritus,  without  doubt,  and  in  many  of  the  other  bu- 
colic poets  of  antiquity,  we  see  some  true  rustics,  and  hear 
the  natural  language  of  unsophisticated  shepherdesses.  But, 

6 


62  DECLINE  OF  POETRY. 

even  in  them,  there  is  introduced  so  much  elegance  of  lan- 
guage, and  so  much  play  of  wit,  that  we  are,  every  now 
and  then,  led  to  forget  the  rural  scenes  in  which  we  are 
supposed  to  be  placed,  and  to  feel  that  we  are  still  in  the 
midst  of  the  social  refinements  of  the  courts  of  Ptolomy  or 
Augustus.  In  general,  the  Idylls  were ,  what  their  name 
expresses ;  little  poetical  pictures,  representations  in  minia- 
ture, sometimes  of  mythological  subjects,  at  other  times  of 
matters  in  common  life,  but  almost  always  amatory  in  their 
purpose  and  termination.  Poetry  had  now  become  utterly 
degraded  from  her  ancient  dignity,  split  into  unnatural  di- 
visions, and  deprived  of  the  strength  which  she  formerly 
possessed.  The  exhaustion  of  her  powers  became  daily 
more  and  more  manifest,  in  the  diminutiveness  of  all  her 
productions.  She  soon  gave  birth  to  nothing,  but  little  tri- 
fling buds  and  flowerets.  Puns,  conceits,  and  quibbles, 
were  the  fashion  of  the  day.  The  age  of  poetry  was  gone, 
when  that  of  anthologies  commenced. 


lihrary^ 


LECTURE  III. 

RETROSPECT — INFLUENCE  OF  THE  GREEKS  ON  THE  ROMANS — SKETCH  OF 

ROMAN  LITERATURE 

After  the  Greeks  had  ceased  to  be  a  nation,  their  litera- 
ture became  daily  more  and  more  unconnected  with  the 
affairs  of  active  life.  This  was  first  and  most  conspicuously 
the  fate  of  their  philosophy,  whose  scientific  principles 
were  at  all  times  in  opposition  to  the  popular  faith,  and 
whose  lofty  conceptions  were  now  no  longer  in  unison  with 
the  degraded  feelings  of  that  fallen  nation.  Historical  in- 
formation became,  indeed,  much  more  extensive,  and  histo- 
rical literature  received  a  more  scientific  form,  and  was 
applied  to  a  greater  variety  of  subjects  than  of  old.  But  the 
vigour  of  ancient  conceptions,  and  the  free  spirit  of  ancient 
inquiry,  was  for  ever  gone.  The  art  of  rhetoric  increased 
daily  in  public  opinion,  and  soon  came  to  form  almost  the 
only  subject  of  public  interest  and  amusement.  If  a  fantas- 
tical and  sophistical  abuse  of  this  art  was  not  uncommon, 
even  in  the  older  and  better  times  of  Greece,  it  is  easy  to 
see  to  what  extent  that  must  now  have  prevailed,  when  her 
political  independence  was  entirely  lost,  and  the  public 
taste,  even  in  language,  was  utterly  debased.  Even  poetry, 
with  which  the  whole  mental  cultivation  of  Greece  began, 
had  descended  from  her  original  eminence,  and  become  re- 
duced to  the  rank  of  an  art,  which  men  supposed  might  be 
acquired  by  means  of  rules  and  practice,  like  a  handicraft. 
Even  poetry  could  not  be  exempted  from  the  influence  of 
the  degradation  which  surrounded  her.  The  fate  of  sculp- 
ture was  much  more  fortunate,  perhaps  because  that  art  has 
less  connection  with  the  affairs  of  active  life.  The  artist 
laboured  on,  in  the  seclusion  of  his  workshop,  to  embody 
in  marble  the  lofty  conceptions  of  preceding  ages,  without 
regard  to  the  political  degradation  or  moral  corruption  of 
the  time  in  which  he  lived.     It  is  true  that  the  relaxation 


64  ARCHIMEDES  AND  EUCLID. 

of  manners  gave  rise  to  a  certain  effeminacy  and  perversion 
of  taste  even  in  sculpture ;  but  this  evil  was  far  from  being 
so  widely  prevalent,  as  the  corresponding  corruptions  in 
the  sister  arts.  There  is  no  doubt  that  very  many  of  those 
works  of  ancient  sculpture  and  architecture,  whose  beauty 
and  perfection  still  appear  to  us  unrivalled,  were  the  produc- 
tion of  the  same  age,  which  saw  oratory  and  poetry  reduced 
altogether  to  a  state  of  decay  and  degradation. 

In  those  sciences  which  are  the  most  unconnected  with 
external  life,  and  have  little  dependence  on  the  political  or 
private  manners  of  a  nation,  the  inventive  genius  of  the 
Greeks  still  displayed  itself  in  all  its  brilliancy  and  strength. 
In  the  mathematics,  although  they  were  destitute  of  many 
instruments  which  have  been  invented  by  modern  mgenuity, 
and  which  now  appear  altogether  indispensable,  they  made 
great  progress  both  in  geometry  and  astronomy,  and  the 
true  system  of  the  universe,  which  had,  it  is  supposed,  been 
guessed  at,  in  a  much  earlier  age,  by  the  Pythagoreans, 
was  now  perfectly  known  and  recognized  by  at  least  a  great 
number  of  their  philosophers.  The  wonder-working  science 
and  ingenuity  of  Archimedes  were  such,  as  to  strike  even 
the  Romans  with  terror  and  amazement :  and  although  they 
had  no  better  system  of  numeration  than  the  very  defective 
one  of  letters,  and  were  even  ignorant  of  reckoning  by  deci- 
mals, the  Greeks  may  boast  of  having  produced  in  Euclid, 
a  geometrical  writer,  whose  works  are  esteemed  of  classical 
authority,  even  by  the  profoundest  mathematicians  of  mo- 
dern times.  Medicine,  which  had  always  been  a  favourite 
pursuit  among  the  Greeks,  now  became  one  of  their  princi- 
pal occupations,  and  furnished  them  with  free  scope  for  the 
exercise  of  all  their  acuteness,  inventiveness,  and  love  of  sys- 
tems. It  was  not  only  by  means  of  their  literature,  and  their 
eminence  as  rhetoricians  and  grammarians,  but  also,  in  no 
inconsiderable  degree,  by  means  of  their  skill  as  artists, 
mathematicians,  and  physicians,  that  the  Greeks  acquired 
their  power  over  Roman  intellect;  a  power  which,  however 
much  the  old  Roman  prejudices  were  at  first  against  it, 
made  daily  progress  after  the  two  nations  had  been  brought 
fairly  into  contact,  and,  in  consequence  of  the  capture  of 
Tarentum,  and  the  subjection  of  Magna  Grecia  and  Sicily 
to  the  Roman  arms,  soon  became  a  matter  of  indispensable 


GRECIAN  LITERATURE.  65 

necessity  to  the  whole  habits  of  the  victorious  people. 
Twice  were  the  Greek  rhetoricians  and  philosophers  ba- 
nished from  Rome  by  a  decree  of  the  senate ;  and  the  elder 
Cato,  that  undistinguishing  enemy  of  every  thing  that  was 
Greek,  could  not  even  abide  that  Greek  physicians  should 
cure  Roman  maladies.  He  depicted  these  practitioners  as 
impious  sorcerers,  who  contradicted  the  course  of  nature, 
and  restored  dying  men  to  life  by  means  of  unholy  charms; 
and  advised  his  countrymen  to  remain  stedfast,  not  only  by 
their  old  Roman  principles  and  manners,  but  also  by  the 
venerable  unguents  and  balsams  which  had  come  down  to 
them  from  the  wisdom  of  their  grandmothers.  How  neces- 
sary the  Greek  rhetoricians,  and  the  teachers  of  the  Greek 
arts  and  language,  had  become  to  the  Romans,  may  be 
gathered  from  the  speedy  appearance  of  a  second  decree  of 
banishment,  which  shows  that  very  little  attention  had  been 
paid  to  the  injunctions  of  the  first.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  dis- 
cover the  origin  of  all  this.  The  Greek  language  was,  at 
that  time,  universally  diffused  throughout  the  whole  of  the 
civilized  world.  The  poems  of  Homer  were  read  in  the 
remotests  districts  of  Asia ;  even  the  Indians  were  not  in  all 
probability,  entirely  ignorant  of  Grecian  literature;  while, 
in  the  farthest  extremity  of  the  west,  Carthaginian  naviga- 
tors described  their  voyages  of  discovery,  and  Hannibal 
himself  wrote  the  history  of  his  wars,  in  the  language  of 
the  Greeks.  After  the  conquest  of  southern  Italy  and  Sici- 
ly, whose  language  was  almost  entirely  Greek,  and  still 
more  after  they  had  by  degrees  acquired  the  dominion  of 
Macedonia  and  Achaia,  a  knowledge  of  this  language  must 
have  become  every  day  more  and  more  necessary  to  the 
Romans,  especially  on  account  of  the  many  historical  works 
which  the  Greeks  possessed,  respecting  all  those  nations 
and  countries,  with  which  the  extended  circle  of  their  poli- 
tical operations  had  now  brought  that  ambitious  people  into 
contact.  The  Greek  language  was  adopted  even  by  the 
Romans,  who  attempted,  about  that  period,  to  write  the  his- 
tory of  their  own  nation;  and  the  Greek  Polybius,  who 
came  to  Rome  as  a  hostage  in  the  course  of  the  Achaian 
wars,  was  the  first  who  described  to  this  great  people  the 
state  of  the  world,  and  the  political  relations  of  its  inhabi- 
tants, in  a  work  which,  at  least  in  a  political  point  of  view, 

6* 


66  LITERATURE  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

must  always  be  considered  as  classical  even  by  the  latest 
posterity.  Livius  Andronicus,  a  Greek  taken  captive  at 
Tarentum,  who  was  acquainted  with  the  Latin  language, 
first  enabled  the  Romans  to  hear  and  read  the  Odyssey  in 
the  rude  disguise  of  their  native  tongue ;  and  afterwards,  by 
means  of  his  translations,  introduced  them  to  some  acquaint- 
ance with  the  pleasures  of  theatrical  exhibitions,  and  the 
riches  of  the  Grecian  drama.  But  it  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  the  principal  inducement,  which  led  first  the  Romans 
of  high  rank,  and  afterwards  the  whole  of  the  nation,  to  ad- 
mire and  imitate  the  institutions  and  language  of  the  Greeks, 
was  unquestionably  this, — a  knowledge  of  the  language 
and  manners  of  the  Greeks  was  a  necessary  step  to  an  ac- 
quaintance with  their  rhetoric.  Eloquence,  even  in  Rome, 
exerted  over  political  events  an  influence  always  powerful, 
not  unfrequently  imperative  and  conclusive :  and,  in  the 
more  troublesome  times  which  followed  the  period  of  Grac- 
chus, the  popular  passion  became  every  day  more  violent, 
for  all  the  instruments  of  this  art, — in  spite  of  the  remon- 
strances of  some  sturdy  patriots,  who  condemned  it  as  a  sys- 
tem of  sophistry,  not  only  dangerous  to  the  welfare  of  the 
state,  but  utterly  inimical  to  the  progress  and  soundness  of 
the  human  intellect. 

The  later  literature  of  the  Romans  is  such  as  to  keep  us 
perpetually  in  mind  of  its  origin ;  and  few  are  now  disposed 
to  question  the  truth  of  the  common  assertion, — that  the  Ro- 
man writers  are  in  general  mere  imitators  of  the  Greeks. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  those  nations  who  make 
their  appearance  at  a  later  period  of  the  history  of  the  world, 
as  well  as  of  the  general  development  of  human  intellect, 
should  derive  a  great  part  of  their  mental  cultivation,  as  a 
legacy  from  the  polished  nations  of  the  more  early  times ; 
and  this  implies,  in  itself,  no  reproach.  It  were  preposte- 
rous to  introduce  into  literature  the  petty  ideas  of  a  mercan- 
tile town ;  and  to  insist  that  the  writers  of  each  nation  should 
labour  to  make  their  productions  as  difierent  as  possible 
from  those  of  their  neighbours.  To  make  use  of  the  culti- 
vation of  another  people  is  far  from  disgraceful :  it  is  only 
necessary  that  we  preserve  our  substantial  individuality  as  a 
nation,  that  we  do  not  part  with  the  original  peculiarities  of 
our  language  and  mode  of  thinking,  nor  sacrifice  what  is 


ROMAN  LITERATURE.  67 

most  our  owm,  out  of  an  extravagant  admiration  for  what 
belongs  originally  to  others.  KJiowledge  is  in  itself  the 
common  property  of  all  nations ;  and  the  genius  of  a  poet 
or  of  a  philosopher,  who  aspires  to  exert  a  commanding  in- 
fluence on  his  fellow-countrymen,  is  exalted  and  enriched 
by  a  retrospect  to  the  high  points  of  perfection, — in  art,  in 
reflection,  in  spirit,  and  in  language, — to  which  the  men  of 
former  ages  and  other  countries  have  attained. 

That  imitation  alone  is  lifeless  which  aims  not  to  extend 
the  field,  and  increase  the  power  of  native  genius,  but 
merely  to  appropriate  peculiar  species  of  writing  used  by  a 
foreign  nation, — an  attempt  which  can  seldom  be  cro^vned 
with  entire  success ;  and  to  reach,  by  elaborate  artifice,  beau- 
ties, whose  very  existence  depends,  in  a  great  measure,  on 
their  being  altogether  natural  and  unsought. 

The  literature  of  Rome  has  fallen  in  some  measure  into 
both  of  these  errors.  Her  writers  both  neglected  the  an- 
cient and  national  traditions  of  their  own  country,  and  be- 
stowed much  unprofitable  labour  on  the  imitation  of  foreign 
modes  of  writing,  which,  as  soon  as  they  are  transplanted 
from  their  native  soil,  for  the  most  part  assume  the  appear- 
ance of  unproductiveness,  coldness,  and  death,  or,  at  best, 
protract  a  lingering  and  inefficient  life,  like  the  sickly  ex- 
otics of  a  green-house. 

There  is,  nevertheless,  a  character  peculiar  to  the  writers 
of  Rome,  by  means  of  which,  in  spite  of  the  servility  with 
which  they  have,  in  general,  imitated  their  models  and  ori- 
ginals in  the  literature  of  Greece,  their  works  have  obtained 
an  appearance  of  dignity  and  worthiness,  that  are  altogether 
their  own.  This,  indeed,  belongs  not  so  much  to  themselves 
as  to  their  nation, — to  Rome,  the  great  point  of  union  be- 
tween the  ancient  and  the  modern  world. 

The  artist  who  excels  in  sculpture  or  painting,  must  be 
altogether  animated  and  inspired  with  one  great  and  in- 
dwelling idea,  which  occupies  his  whole  soul ;  an  idea  for 
which  he  forgets  all  others,  in  which  alone  he  lives,  and  to 
which  all  his  works  are  entirely  subservient.  His  master- 
pieces are  mere  attempts  to  body  forth,  and  render  visible  to 
others,  the  greatness  of  those  conceptions,  which  have  their 
residence  within  the  depths  of  his  own  mind.  In  like  man- 
ner, every  true  poet,  and  every  great  inventive  author,  must 


68        INFLUENCE  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE, 

be  filled  with  some  idea  peculiarly  his  own,  and  all-power- 
ful over  his  soul — which  is  the  central  point  and  focus  of 
his  intellect — ^to  which  every  thing  else  is  subordinate — and 
of  which  the  writings,  wherein  he  embodies  his  spirit,  are 
but  the  ministers,  interpreters,  and  tools.  Here  it  is  that  the 
superiority  of  Greeks  over  Romans  is  manifest  and  trium- 
phant. Think  only  of  the  great  poets  of  the  glorious  time 
of  Greece — of  ^schylus,  Pindar,  Sophocles ;  or  of  the  pat- 
riotic poet  of  the  populace,  Aristophanes — or  of  the  orator 
Demosthenes — or  of  the  two  first  of  historians,  Herodotus 
and  Thucydides — or  those  profoundest  of  thinkers,  Aris- 
totle and  Plato.  In  each  of  these  great  authors  we  shall 
find  a  distinct  and  peculiar  spirit  of  reflection,  a  peculiar 
manner  of  narration,  a  peculiar  form  of  composition ;  even 
with  regard  to  style  and  language,  the  first  time  we  open 
the  pages  of  one  of  these  master-spirits,  we  feel  as  if  we  were 
transplanted  into  an  unknown  world.  Thus  rich  and  mani- 
fold was  the  genius  of  the  Greeks ;  but  we  should  seek  in 
vain  for  so  great  a  spirit  of  originality  among  the  Roman 
writers.  Yet  there  is  something  in  them  which  atones  for 
this  defect ;  they  also  have  their  high,  their  great  idea  :  not 
that  the  individuals  are  so  favoured ;  but  the  possession  is 
common  to  them  all ;  it  is  the  idea  of  Rome  :  of  Rome,  so 
wonderful  in  her  ancient  manners  and  laws — so  great  even 
in  her  errors  and  her  crimes ;  of  Rome,  so  eternally  re- 
markable for  the  unrivalled  dominion  with  which  she  ruled 
the  world.  It  is  this  spirit  which  breathes  from  the  lips  of 
every  Roman,  and  which  stamps  a  character  of  independent 
dignity  and  grandeur  even  on  his  most  slavish  imitations  of 
the  writings  of  the  Greeks. 

The  greatness  and  the  political  activity  of  the  state,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  power  and  audacious  exertion  of  in- 
tellect in  the  individuals  of  which  the  state  is  composed,  on 
the  other,  are,  by  the  nature  of  things,  in  some  measure  op- 
posed to  each  other ;  although  it  be  unquestionably  both  a 
natural  and  a  proper  feeling,  which  makes  every  good  citi- 
zen wish  equal  success  to  political  energy  and  individual 
genius,  in  the  country  to  which  he  belongs. 

As  aflJairs  are  constituted,  this  much  is  certain,  that  so 
manifold  and  various  a  development  of  human  faculties  as 
that  which  took  place  in  Greece,  can  never  occur  in  any 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  LITERATURE  COMPARED.  69 

State  where  the  principle  of  patriotism  has  attained  a  certain 
point  of  predominance ;  where  men  have  no  thoughts  and  no 
feelings  which  are  not  occupied  and  penetrated  with  the 
greatness  and  the  glory  of  their  country.  It  was  necessary 
that  Athens  should  have  been  as  free  as  she  really  was, — 
sufficiently  free  to  allow  a  large  portion  of  her  citizens  to 
abstract  themselves  altogether  from  political  concerns,  with- 
out any  danger  to  their  political  privileges, — ^before  she  could 
have  displayed,  as  she  has  done,  in  every  department  of  in- 
tellect and  art,  the  unrivalled  energies  of  the  Grecian  genius. 
Sparta  was  the  only  state  in  Greece,  constituted  as  such,  at 
once  virtuously  and  powerfully  j  the  only  state  whose  tri- 
umphs were  not  confined  to  temporary  dominion  and  suc- 
cess, but  extended  to  a  strong,  a  sound,  and  an  enduring  po- 
litical existence.  These  advantages  were  not  to  be  gained 
without  some  sacrifice :  and  Sparta  chose  to  obtain  them  by 
adopting  a  system  of  municipal  institutions,  the  tendency  of 
which  was  to  confine  the  whole  thoughts  and  manners  of 
her  citizens  within  a  particular  range.  She  was  content  to 
be  without  philosophers  and  poets,  provided  she  could  only 
have  sagacious  statesmen  and  intrepid  warriors;  and  he 
who,  had  he  been  born  in  Athens,  might  have  become  a 
Sophocles  or  a  Plato,  envied,  at  Lacedaemon,  no  other  names 
but  those  of  Lycurgus  and  Leonidas. 

But  I  must  illustrate  the  truth  of  my  position  respecting 
the  Roman  authors,  by  a  recurrence  to  individual  examples. 
Is  it  not  clear,  that  in  Caesar,  or  even  in  Cicero,  (consider- 
ing both  of  these  merely  as  writers,)  there  is  a  something 
which  sets  them  at  once  far  before  the  rhetoricians,  gram- 
marians, philosophers,  and  sophists,  whose  pupils  they  evi- 
dently are  in  all  that  regards  language,  eloquence,  and  mode 
of  thinking,  and  to  whom  they  are  so  often  and  so  obviously 
inferior  in  the  acuteness,  and  the  scientific  knowledge,  which 
it  is  one  principal  object  of  their  writings  to  display.  Every 
one  must  feel  that  here,  as  in  all  the  works  of  the  great 
Roman  writers,  there  breathes  a  spirit  very  different  from 
that  of  the  corrupted  sophistry  of  the  later  age  of  Greece. 
This  is  not  the  genius,  or  the  peculiar  spirit  of  the  authors 
themselves ;  it  is  the  idea  of  Rome,  the  idea  of  the  solitary 
grandeur  of  their  country,  which,  although  its  operations  be 
very  different,  alike  animates  them  all ;  and,  like  the  unseen 


70  GREEK    MANNERS    AND    GREEK    AUTHORS. 

spirit  of  life,  pervades  and  iliuminates  the  whole  body  of 
their  writings. 

That  the  Romans  learned  or  borrowed  every  thing-  from 
the  Greeks,  and  had,  in  reality,  nothing  which  was  pecu- 
liarly and  from  antiquity  their  own,  is  very  far  from  the 
truth.  We  should  come  nearer  the  mark,  if  we  should  say, 
that,  through  the  overmastering  influence  of  Greek  manners 
and  Greek  authors,  the  Romans  of  a  later  period  were  in- 
duced to  forget  what  they  ought  most  carefully  to  have 
cherished  and  preserved, — the  old  heroic  tales  and  national 
poems  of  their  ancestors.  These  surely  were  the  produc- 
tions of  an  age  far  preceding  any  knowledge  or  imitation  of 
Grecian  models,  and  yet,  so  much  have  they  been  despised, 
that  we  can  scarcely  perceive  any  trace  of  their  existence, 
except  in  certain  relics,  which  have  been  transferred  from 
true  poetry  to  the  half-fabulous  histories  of  the  infant  ages 
of  Rome.  In  many  passages  of  those  Roman  writers,  who 
were  the  best  acquainted  with  the  ancient  usages  and  man- 
ners of  their  country,  allusion  is  made  to  the  existence  of 
certain  old  songs,  whose  purpose  was  to  celebrate  the  illus- 
trious actions  of  their  early  ancestors,  and  which  had  com- 
monly been  sung  at  their  religious  festivals,  as  well  as  at 
the  private  entertainments  of  the  Roman  nobles.  There, 
then,  were  heroic  poems,  wherein  the  patriotic  feelings  and 
the  poetical  genius  of  the  Romans  found  means  to  express 
themselves,  long  before  the  Romans  became  the  pupils  oi 
the  Greeks,  and  acquired  from  them,  along  with  that  so- 
phistical eloquence  of  which  I  have  already  said  so  much, 
a  style  of  poetry  more  regular  and  learned,  and,  in  every 
thing  which  respects  prosody  and  language,  in  comparatively 
more  polished  than  that  which  they  had  of  old  possessed. 
If  it  should  be  asked  what  were  the  subjects  of  these  old 
Roman  poems  ?  the  Roman  histories,  I  conceive,  may  easily 
furnish  us  with  an  answer.  Not  only  the  fabulous  birth 
and  fate  of  Romulus,  and  the  rape  of  the  Sabine  women, 
but  also  the  most  poetical  combat  of  the  Horatii  and  Curi- 
atii — the  pride  of  Tarquin — the  misfortune  and  death  of 
Lucretia,  with  their  bloody  revenge,  and  the  establishment 
of  liberty  by  the  elder  Brutus — the  wonderful  war  of  Por- 
senna,  and  the  steadfastness  of  Scoevola, — the  banishment  of 
Coriolanus,  the  war  which  he  kindled  against  his  country 


neibuhr's  history.  71 

— ^the  subsequent  struggle  of  his  feelings,  and  the  final  tri- 
umph of  his  patriotism  at  the  all-powerful  intercession  of 
his  mother :  these  and  the  like  circumstances,  if  they  be  ex- 
amined from  the  proper  point  of  view,  cannot  feil  to  be  con- 
sidered as  the  relics  and  fragments  of  the  ancient  heroic 
traditions  and  heroic  poems  of  the  Romans.  As  such  they 
are  of  great  value ;  and  that  cannot  be  diminished,  by  any 
difficulties  which  the  mere  historical  student  may  experi- 
ence, in  reconciling  the  discrepancies  of  narrative,  or  ex- 
plaining the  obscurities  of  allusion,  with  which,  in  their 
present  condition,  they  abound.  That  many  things  which, 
of  right,  belong  to  these  ancient  poems,  still  exist  under  the 
disguise  of  an  historical  clothing ;  that  in  Livy,  above  all, 
the  spirit  and  power  of  these  old  songs  is  often  the  predomi- 
nant inspiration  of  the  narrative,  has,  indeed,  very  frequently 
been  conjectured.  But  it  was  reserved  for  a  learned  in- 
quirer of  our  own  time,  Neibuhr,  to  take  these  compositions 
to  pieces,  and  to  detect,  with  a  felicity  which  has  seldom 
been  equalled,  the  modern  inventions  and  additions  by  which 
incidents,  in  themselves  unconnected,  have  been  artificially 
conjoined.  This  critic  has,  indeed,  taken  away  from  the 
Roman  history:  but  we  have  gained  through  his  means 
a  more  accurate  acquaintance  with  the  nature  of  the  an- 
cient Roman  traditions  which  we  possess.  Before  the 
rythm  and  artifices  of  Greek  versification  had  weaned  Ro- 
man ears  from  their  affection  for  the  simple  sounds  of  their 
own  songs,  these  historical  or  heroic  adventures  were  sung 
in  a  loose  sort  of  verses,  which  the  ancient  Italians  called 
Saturnalian ;  and  which,  excepting  that  they  had  no  rhjine, 
bore  a  strong  resemblance  to  those  lawless  Alexandrines,  as 
they  were  called,  of  which  almost  all  the  nations  of  Europe 
made  use,  during  the  period  of  the  middle  ages. 

These  heroic  ballads  of  the  more  early  Romans, — if  we 
may  judge  of  their  general  import  from  the  materials  which 
they  have  fiirnished  to  the  Roman  historians, — seem  to  have 
aimed  at  the  narration  of  no  incident  which  did  not  belong 
to  their  country,  and  at  the;.'  expression  of  no  feelings  but 
such  as  were  purely  patriotic.  We  perceive  in  them,  in- 
deed, no  inconsiderable  admixture  of  love  for  the  marvellous ; 
but  even  that  propensity  seems  to  have  been  exclusively 
national  in  its  character  and  spirit ;  for  the  Roman  fablers 


»s 


72  ERA    OF    ROMAN    HISTORY. 

appear  to  have  indulged  themselves  in  the  creation  of  no 
wonders,  which  might  not  redound,  in  some  measure,  to  the 
honour  of  their  ancestors.  It  is  much  to  he  regretted  that 
the  manifold  witchery  of  the  Odyssey,  and  the  perfect  har- 
mony of  the  ever  various  hexameter,  should  have  made  so 
entire  a  conquest  of  the  ears  and  souls  of  the  Romans,  as  to 
leave  no  room  for  a  more  affectionate  preservation  of  these 
ancient  poems  of  their  country. 

There  is,  however,  another  reason  which  tended,  in  no 
inconsiderahje  degree,  to  render  the  Romans  indifferent,  if 
not  averse,  to  their  heroic  legends ;  and  which  must  have 
mainly  contributed  towards  bringing  these  into  a  state  of 
neglect,  the  consequences  of  which  have  been,  that,  with  the 
exception  of  those  fragments  which  have  been  imperfectly 
preserved  in  the  shape  of  a  half-fabulous  and  ill-connected 
chronicle,  they  have  been  utterly  lost,  not  only  to  the  history 
of  Rome,  but  to  that  of  the  world  itself,  of  which  Rome  be- 
came afterwards  the  mistress.  The  last  heroic  personage  of 
the  old  Roman  history  is  Camillus,  who  delivered  Rome 
from  her  invaders  the  Gauls.  He  falls  within  the  period 
both  of  tradition  and  of  poetry,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  his  fame  was  transmitted  in  songs,  to  the  posterity  of 
those  whom  he  had  set  free.  With  the  expulsion  of  the 
Gauls  the  historical  period  of  Rome  begins.  During  the 
time  when  they  ravaged  the  country,  the  ancient  monuments 
must  in  a  great  measure  have  perished;  for  every  thing 
previous  to  this  epoch  is  dark  and  doubtful,  even  that  which 
is  founded  on  fact,  is  perpetually  intermingled  with  a  texture 
of  fabulous  inventions.  From  this  time,  moreover,  the  true 
period  of  Roman  greatness  commences.  In  a  historical 
point  of  view,  it  is  even  the  proper  period  of  Roman  hero- 
ism: and  to  it  we  may  probably  refer  the  composition  of 
those  old  heroic  songs,  of  which  Cato  and  Cicero  make  men- 
tion, and  which  Ennius  and  even  Livy  had  perpetually  before 
their  eyes. 

Now  the  older  traditions  concerning  the  kings  and  heroes 
of  the  infant  city,  the  establishment  of  its  republican  govern- 
ment, and  the  vicissitudes  of  its  early  fate,  were  near  enough 
to  this  age  of  Roman  valour  and  virtue,  to  be  still  felt  with 
all  that  power  and  pressure,  which  are  necessary  to  make 
such  events  the  fit  subjects  of  national  poetry.     But  at  a 


INTRODUCTION    OF    GREEK    LITERATURE.  73 

period  somewhat  later,  the  case  was  widely  different.  After 
the  subjection  of  Tarentum,  Italy,  Sicily,  Macedonia,  Car- 
thage, Spain,  and  Achaia,  there  could  have  been  compara- 
tively little  sympathy  between  the  petty  Rome  of  antiquity, 
of  her  that  made  war  against  the  Sabines,  or  beleaguered 
the  town  of  Veii  for  as  many  years  as  Agamemnon  did  Troy, 
and  mighty  Rome  pressing  on  to  the  dominion  of  the  world, 
with  an  irresistible  rapidity,  and  an  unwavering  confidence 
in  the  ascendancy  of  her  victorious  star.  The  Greeks  were, 
even  from  the  remotest  times,  a  numerous  nation,  divided  into 
many  tribes,  and  having  possession  of  extensive  territories. 
But  the  original  patrimony  of  the  Romans  consisted  of  a 
single  village,  and  they  had  formed  themselves,  first,  into 
an  independent,  and  afterwards  into  a  conquering  people, 
entirely  by  the  incorporation  of  foreigners,  who  took  little 
interest  in  the  traditions  of  their  earliest  achievements. 

It  was,  therefore,  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the  nature  of 
the  things  themselves,  and  of  the  progress  of  events,  that  these 
ancient  patriotic  traditions  and  poems  should  gradually  sink 
into  neglect,  at  least  that  they  should  never  form  the  ground- 
work of  a  polished  and  developed  literature ;  and,  in  short, 
that  the  Romans  should  adopt  in  their  stead  the  thoughts, 
the  recollections,  and  the  poetry  of  the  Greeks.  The  blanie 
of  this  should  by  no  means  be  exclusively  attached  to  Enni- 
us ;  although  it  be  true  that  the  acute  historical  critic,  whom 
I  have  cited  above,  has  accused  that  writer  of  maliciously 
calumniating  and  depressing  these  ancient  compositions,  in 
order  that  he  himself  might  be  considered  as  the  author  and 
founder  of  Roman  poetry.  It  is  however  certain  that  En- 
nius  boasted,  with  much  openness,  that  he  was  animated  with 
three  different  souls,  in  allusion  to  his  knowledge  of  three 
languages — Greek,  Latin,  and  Oscian,  or  ancient  Italian. 
And  there  is  no  improbability  in  the  supposition  that  a  man 
who  did  so  was  not  a  little  proud  of  his  success,  (imperfect 
as  that  really  was,)  in  transferring  the  music  of  the  Greek 
hexameter  into  another  tongue.  The  greatest  of  poets  are 
not  always  exempt  from  this  sort  of  vanity ;  and  often  attach 
a  very  undue  weight  to  some  merely  external  circumstances 
in  their  composition.  They  judge  too  much  of  the  value  of 
what  they  have  done,  by  the  labour  which  it  has  cost  them 
to  do  it  j  and  think  little,  on  the  other  hand,  of  those  quali- 

7 


74  THE  DRAMA  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

ties  which  form  their  real  excellence, — nay,  are  sometimes 
almost  unconscious  of  the  existence  of  that  internal  inspira- 
ration,  which  animates  their  genius  and  awakens  our  sym- 
pathy. Ennius,  for  instance,  appears  to  have  thought  more 
about  his  versification  than  his  poetry ;  and  to  have  too  much 
despised  the  old  poets  of  his  native  country,  merely  because 
they  had  not,  like  himself,  made  use  of  the  rich  and  various 
measures  of  the  Greeks.  Yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  Ennius 
was  a  true  poet.  In  many  of  his  verses  which  have  been 
preserved  by  succeeding  writers,  there  breathes  the  noble 
spirit  of  genuine  emotion.  But  even  if  every  fragment  of 
his  writings  had  perished,  the  admiration  with  Avhich  he 
was  regarded  by  Lucretius,  would  have  been  sufficient  to 
place  him  high  in  our  esteem.  That  illustrious  poet,  it  is 
well  known,  considered  Ennius  as  his  master  and  his  model. 
His  genius  was  of  a  kindred  order ;  and  he  bore  to  him  a 
strong  resemblance,  both  in  the  turn  of  his  thoughts  and  the 
flow  of  his  diction. 

From  this  time  the  imitation  of  the  Greek  writers  pro- 
ceeded rapidly,  although  not  with  uniform  success.  Of  all 
the  compositions  of  the  Greeks,  their  histories  and  their 
orations  Avere  most  interesting  to  the  Romans,  and  most 
akin  to  their  political  habits.  They  were,  consequently, 
most  fortunate  in  their  imitations  of  these  modes  of  writinof. 
The  Greek  philosophy,  on  the  other  hand,  was  alwaj^s 
foreign  to  them :  and  the  success  of  their  imitations  of  Greek 
poetry  was  very  different  in  the  different  departments  of  the 
art. 

In  the  drama  the  Romans  were  perpetually  making  at- 
tempts, from  the  time  of  Ennius  downward.  In  truth,  how- 
ever, they  have  left  nothing  in  that  department  of  poetry  ex- 
cept translations  from  the  Greek,  more  or  less  exact,  but 
never  executed  with  sufficient  spirit  to  entitle  them  even  to 
the  less  servile  name  of  imitations.  The  lost  tragedians, 
Pacuvius  and  Attius,  were  mere  translators ;  and  the  same 
thing  may  be  said  of  the  two  comic  poets  Plautus  and 
Terence,  whose  writings  are  in  our  hands.  That  old  do- 
mestic species  of  bantering  comedy,  which  was  known  by 
the  Oscian  name  of  fabula  attellana,  was  not,  however,  en- 
tirely laid  aside.  It  still  preserved  its  place  as  an  amuse- 
ment of  society  in  the  merry  meetings  of  the  nobles ;  who, 


THE    GREEK    TRAGEDIANS.  75 

in  the  midst  of  all  their  foreign  refinements,  were  willing, 
now  and  then,  to  revive  in  this  way  their  recollections  of  the 
national  sports  and  diversions  of  their  Italian  ancestry. 
With  the  exception  of  this  low  species  of  huffoon  writing, 
the  Romans  never  possessed  any  thing  which  deserved  to  he 
called  a  dramatic  literature  of  their  own.  With  resfard  to 
their  translations  from  the  Greek  tragedians,  one  principal 
cause  of  their  stiffiiess  and  general  want  of  success  was  this, 
— that  the  mythology,  which  forms  the  essence  of  these 
compositions,  was  in  fact  foreign  to  the  Roman  people.  It 
is  very  true  that  the  general  outline  of  the  Roman  mytho- 
logy was  originally  copied  from  that  of  the  Greeks,  hut  the 
individual  parts  of  the  two  fabrics  were  altogether  different 
and  local  Iphigenia  and  Orestes  were  always  more  or  less 
foreigners  to  a  Roman  audience ;  and  the  whole  drama  in 
which  these  and  similar  personages  figured,  never  attained 
in  Rome  any  more  healthy  state  of  existence,  than  that  of 
an  exotic  in  a  green-house,  which  is  only  preserved  from 
death  by  the  daily  application  of  artificial  heat  and  unsatis- 
fying labour.  The  names  of  the  individual  tragedies,  which 
were  supposed  to  be  the  best  of  their  kind  in  the  time  of 
Augustus,  may  suffice  to  shew  us  how  narrow  was  the  circle 
in  which  the  Roman  dramatists  moved,  and  how  soon  their 
tragic  art  has  reached  the  termination  of  its  progress.  The 
same  thing  may  easily  be  gathered  from  a  consideration  of 
those  orations  in  dramatic  form  which  are  commonly  ascribed 
to  Seneca  In  like  manner  the  representation  of  the  foreign 
manners  of  Athens,  which  perpetually  occupied  the  Roman 
comedy,  must  have  appeared  to  Roman  spectators  at  once 
cold  and  uninteresting.  It  is  no  difficult  matter  to  perceive 
the  reasons,  why  the  witchery  of  pantomime  and  dance 
soon  supplanted  at  Rome  every  other  species  of  dramatic 
spectacle. 

There  is  one  of  a  still  more  serious  nature  upon  which  I 
have  not  yet  touched.  The  Roman  people  had  by  degrees 
become  accustomed  to  take  a  barbarous  delight  in  the  most 
wanton  displays  of  human  violence  and  brutal  cruelty. 
Hundreds  of  lions  and  elephants  fought  and  bled  before 
their  eyes ;  even  Roman  ladies  could  look  on,  and  see 
crowds  of  hireling  gladiators  wasting  energy,  valour,  and 
life,  on  the  guilty  arena  of  a  circus.     It  is  but  too  evident 


76        CONDITION  OF  THE  ROMAN  DRAMA. 

that  they  who  could  take  pleasure  in  spectacles  such  as 
these,  must  very  soon  have  lost  all  that  tenderness  of  inward 
feeling,  and  all  that  sjTupathy  for  inward  suffering,  without 
which  none  can  perceive  the  force  and  beauty  of  a  tragic 
drama.  Still,  however,  it  may  unquestionably  appear  a 
strange  thing,  that,  since  the  Romans  did  make  many  at- 
tempts at  the  composition  of  tragedies,  they  should  never 
have  chosen  their  subjects  from  the  ancient  history  or  tradi- 
tions of  their  country ;  more  particularly  when  we  consider 
that  the  tragedians  of  modern  times  have  borrowed,  from 
these  very  sources,  many  subjects  of  a  highly  poetical  na- 
ture, and,  at  the  same  time,  far  from  being  unsusceptible  of 
dramatic  representation, — such  as  the  combat  of  the  Horatii, 
the  firmness  of  Brutus,  the  internal  conflict  and  changed 
spirit  of  Coriolanus,  restoring  in  this  way  to  poetry  what 
was  originally  among  the  most  rightful  of  her  possessions. 
To  find  a  satisfactory  solution  of  this  difficulty,  we  must 
examine  into  the  nature  of  these  neglected  themes.  The 
patriotic  feelings  embodied  in  these  traditions,  were  too  much 
akin  to  the  feelings  of  every  Roman  audience,  to  admit  of 
being  brought  forward  upon  a  stage.  The  story  of  Corio- 
lanus may  serve  as  an  example.  How  could  a  Roman  poet 
have  dared  to  represent  this  haughty  patrician  in  the  full 
strength  of  his  disdain  and  scorn  of  plebeians,  at  the  time 
when  the  Gracchi  were  straining  every  nerve  to  set  the  ple- 
beians free  from  the  authority  of  the  nobles  ?  What  effect 
must  it  have  had,  to  introduce  the  banished  Coriolanus  upon 
a  Roman  stage,  reproaching,  in  his  merited  indignation, 
with  bitter  Avords  and  dear  bought  mockery,  the  jealous 
levity  of  his  countrymen,  at  a  time  when  the  noblest  and  the 
most  free-spirited  of  the  last  Romans,  Sertorius,  from  his 
place  of  exile,  among  the  unsubdued  tribes  of  Spain  and 
Lusitania,  meditated  more  complete  revenge  against  similar 
ingratitude,  and  Avas  laying  plans  for  the  destruction  of  the 
old,  and  the  foundation  of  a  second  Rome  ?  Or  how  could 
a  Roman  audience  have  endured  to  see  Coriolanus  repre- 
sented as  approaching  Rome  at  the  head  of  an  hostile  and 
victorious  army,  at  the  time  when  Sylla  was  in  reality  at 
open  war  with  his  country ;  or  even  at  a  somewhat  later 
period,  when  the  principal  events  of  his  history  must  have 
still  been  familiar  and  present  to  the  recollection  of  his 


THE    GENIUS    OF    LUCRETIUS.  77 

countrjrmen?  Not  in  these  instances  alone,  but  in  the 
whole  body  of  the  early  traditions  and  history  of  Rome,  the 
conflict  between  patricians  and  plebeians  occupied  so  pre- 
eminent a  place,  as  to  render  Roman  subjects  incapable  of 
theatrical  representation  during  the  times  of  the  republic. 
Much  more  does  this  apply  to  the  age  of  Augustus  and  his 
successors,  when,  indeed,  Brutus  and  the  ancient  consular 
heroes  could  not  have  failed  to  be  the  most  unwelcome  of  all 
personages.  We  may  find  sufficient  illustrations  of  these 
remarks  in  the  history  of  the  modern  drama.  For,  although 
Shakespeare  has  not  hesitated  to  represent  the  civil  wars  of 
York  and  Lancaster  on  the  Enghsh  stage,  we  must  observe, 
that,  before  he  did  so,  these  wars  had  entirely  terminated ; 
and  the  recurrence  of  similar  events  could  not  easily  have 
been  foreseen  by  one  living  in  the  pacific  times  of  James. 
With  regard  to  our  German  drama,  it  is  true  that  our  tragic 
poets  have  chosen  many  of  these  most  interesting  subjects 
from  our  civil  tumults — particularly  from  the  thirty  years' 
war ;  but  even  here  the  case  is  very  different  from  what  it 
would  have  been  among  the  Romans.  The  Germans  are 
indeed  countrymen,  but  they  are  not  all  subjects  of  the  same 
state.  And  yet  with  us,  the  poets  who  handle  such  topics  at 
much  length,  have  a  very  difficult  task  to  perform ;  they 
have  need  of  much  delicacy  to  avoid  wounding  or  perhaps 
reviving  the  feelings  of  parties,  and  thus  destroying  the 
proper  impression  which  their  poetry  should  make. 

Such  are  the  reasons  why  the  Romans  had  no  national 
tragedies ;  and  why,  in  general,  they  had  no  such  thing  as 
a  theatre  of  their  own. 

Among  their  poets  who  applied  themselves  to  other  de- 
partments of  the  art,  Lucretius  stands  by  himself  in  Roman 
literature,  whether  we  consider  the  subjects,  or  the  spirit  of 
his  writings.  Perhaps,  indeed,  he  may  give  us  something 
like  an  idea  of  the  style  and  manner  of  the  more  ancient 
Roman  poets.  By  the  later  Romans  he  was  little  thought 
of;  they  neither  felt  his  beauties,  nor  appreciated  his  genius. 
His  work  concerning  the  nature  of  things^  belongs  to  that 
species  of  writing,  which  arose  among  the  Greeks  out  of 
particular  circumstances  in  their  history,  and  which,  among 
them  only,  was  a  national  mode  of  composition — the  didac- 
tic poetry  of  science.     The  philosophy  which  he  has  cho- 


78  REMARKS  ON  POETIC  COMPOSITION. 

sen  to  illustrate,  was  the  worst  which  he  could  have  selected, 
either  as  a  Roman  or  as  a  poet.  The  system  of  Epicurus, 
I  mean,  which  annihilates  all  belief  and  all  lofty  feeling- ; 
which,  in  a  scientific  point  of  view,  is  connected  with  the 
I  most  absurd  of  hypotheses ;  which,  in  its  influence  on  life, 
I  if  not  immoral,  is  at  least  selfish  and  unpatriotic,  and  which, 
•  above  all,  is  the  deadly  enemy  of  every  thing  like  fancy 
and  poetry.  It  is  true  that  Lucretius  has  mastered  all  these 
difficulties ;  but  who  can  see  without  regret  a  spirit  so  no- 
ble, as  that  which  is  every  where  apparent  in  his  writings, 
devoted  and  enslaved  to  a  destructive  system  of  Grecian 
sophistry?  In  inspiration,  and  in  sublimity,  he  is  the  first 
of  Roman  poets ;  as  a  painter  and  worshipper  of  nature,  he 
is  the  first  of  all  the  poets  of  antiquity  whose  writings  have 
come  down  to  us.  With  regard  to  the  species  of  writing 
which  he  adopted,  and  in  general  with  regard  to  the  place 
which  nature  should  occupy  in  poetical  compositions,  I 
shall  now  make  a  few  general  remarks. 
T  And  in  the  first  place,  I  think  it  will  be  admitted  on  all 
hands  that  poetry  may  choose  the  subject  of  her  descriptions 
as  well  as  the  source  of  her  inspiration,  not  only  in  human 
beings  themselves,  but  with  equal  propriety  in  the  external 
nature  with  which  they  are  surrounded.  In  the  poetry  of 
nature,  as  in  the  poetry  of  man,  there  is  room  for  a  threefold 
distinction.  The  poetry  of  man  may  be,  first,  a  clear  mir- 
ror of  actual  life  and  the  present ;  or,  secondly,  an  embody- 
ing of  the  recollections  of  a  marvellous  antiquity,  and  de- 
parted age  of  heroic  actions  and  adventures ;  or,  thirdly,  if 
it  be  in  the  hands  of  a  poet  who  desires  rather  to  inspire 
than  to  describe,  it  may  consist  in  a  stirring  up  and  awaken- 
ing of  the  hidden  depths  of  human  feeling.  All  this  might 
be  equally  well  said  of  the  poetry  of  nature.  For  this  poetry 
may,  in  the  first  place,  give  us  a  picture  of  the  external  ap- 
pearances of  things ;  and  for  this  purpose  introduce  all  that  is 
quickening  and  enlivening  in  spring,  all  that  is  generous  or 
'  powerful  in  animals,  all  that  is  beautiful  and  lovely  in  flow- 
ers and  trees ;  all,  in  short,  that  seems  to  the  eyes  of  men 
sublime  or  pleasing,  whether  in  the  heavens,  under  which 
they  move,  or  on  the  earth  upon  which  they  tread.  The 
only  difficulty  here  is  to  avoid  exuberance:  for  descriptions 
which  are  too  full,  even  although  they  should  be  perfectly 


THE  SUBJECTS  OF  POETRY.  79 

just,  are  distressing  to  us,  and  destroy  their  own  effect ; 
while  solitary  flowers  from  the  fulness  of  nature,  inserted  at 
due  intervals  into  the  web  of  poetry,  lend  a  charm  to  the 
whole  texture,  which  no  other  ornament  can  rival.  But 
nature  also,  in  the  second  place,  had  her  wonderful  past ;  she 
also  has  had  her  times  of  gigantic  dimension  and  unfettered 
energy,  which  correspond  with  the  heroic  ages  in  the  his- 
tory of  man.  To  be  convinced  of  this,  we  need  only  at- 
tempt to  analyze  the  feelings  with  which  we  ourselves  sur- 
vey nature  in  her  wildest  forms, — ^the  awe  with  which  we 
are  struck  when  we  enter  into  some  savage  wilderness, 
where  rocks,  and  hills,  and  woods,  and  waters,  are  all  min- 
gled together  in  the  shapeless  majesty  of  chaos.  Or  we 
may  reflect  for  a  moment  on  the  tenor  of  all  ancient  tradi- 
tions :  they  abound  in  the  display  of  the  great  physical  ca- 
tastrophes of  the  past.  All  the  more  unusual  and  terrific 
appearances  of  nature — storms,  tempests,  floods,  and  earth- 
quakes, seem  to  be  scattered  remnants  of  this  ancient  state  of 
things,  and  carry  us  back  for  a  moment  into  the  bosom  of 
this  mysterious  past.  These  are  among  the  most  proper 
and  the  most  dignified  subjects  of  poetry,  and  of  them,  ac- 
cordingly, the  great  painter  of  nature,  Lucretius,  has  made 
frequent  use.  But,  here,  also  the  poet  must  be  contented 
with  the  general  representation  of  a  state  of  things  more 
wild  and  free, — a  past  age  of  greater  and  more  terrific  ope- 
rations. He  must  be  contented  with  the  possession  of  a 
theatre  on  which  nature  may  perform  her  most  awful  tra- 
gedies. But  he  must  not  scrutinize  with  too  close  an  eye  the 
mysteries  of  her  working.  It  is  no  part  of  his  province  to 
explain  the  scientific  causes  of  these  great  phenomena.  If 
he  should  begin  to  teach  us  hßio  the  mountains  were  fram- 
ed— it  makes  no  difference  whether  he  adopts  the  theory  of 
fire  or  of  water — he  has  overstepped  his  limits ;  he  has  en- 
tered upon  a  topic  as  remote  from  his  art,  as  that  system  of 
atoms,  which  even  the  unrivalled  imagination  of  Lucretius 
could  not  represent  in  a  manner  thoroughly  poetical.  But 
there  is  yet  a  third  mode  in  which  the  poet  may  make  use 
of  nature.  Between  the  poet  and  nature,  no  less  than  be- 
tween the  poet  and  man,  there  is  the  sympathy  of  feeling. 
Not  only  in  the  song  of  the  nightingale,  or  in  those  melo- 
dies to  which  all  men  listen,  but  even  in.  the  roar  of  the 


80  THE  ORATIONS  OF  CICERO. 

the  stream,  and  the  rushing  of  the  forest,  the  poet  thinks 
that  he  hears  a  kindred  voice  of  sorrow  or  of  gladness :  as 
if  spirits  and  feelings  like  our  OAvn  were  calling  to  us  from 
afar,  or  seeking  to  sympathize  and  communicate  with  us 
from  the  utmost  nearness  to  which  their  nature  will  allow 
them  to  approach  us.  It  is  for  the  purpose  of  listening  to 
these  tones,  and  of  holding  mysterious  converse  with  the 
soul  of  nature,  that  every  great  poet  is  a  lover  of  solitude. 
The  question  of  the  philosophic  inquirer,  whether  nature, 
be,  in  truth,  so  animated,  or  whether  all  this  be  not  mere 
self-deception,  is  one  of  no  avail.  It  is  sufficient  that  this 
feeling  and  tliis  aspiration  are  things  which  exist,  more  or  less, 
in  the  fancy  and  the  breast,  not  of  poets  only,  but  of  all  men. 
In  the  writings  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  we  have  only  a 
few  traces  of  this  sort  of  poetry ;  they  are  more  abundant  in 
those  of  our  northern  ancestry,  because  these  lived  less  in 
cities,  and  were,  of  course,  more  intimate  with  the  simple 
forms  of  nature.  But  the  truth  is,  that  all  these  descriptions 
and  feelings  of  nature  should  never,  in  poetry,  be  cut  ofT 
and  separated  from  the  representation  of  those  human  beings, 
of  whose  real  life  they  form  the  most  beautiful  ornaments. 
When  they  are  insolated  and  set  forth  by  themselves,  the 
great  and  perfect  picture  of  the  world,  which  it  is  the  busi- 
ness of  poetry  to  place  before  our  eyes,  becomes  contracted 
in  its  limits ;  the  harmony  is  irremediably  destroyed,  and 
that  power,  which  is  so  irresistible  when  all  is  together,  be- 

j  comes  broken,  dissipated,  and  ineflfectual.  The  scientific 
poetry  of  nature  which  is  to  be  found  in  Lucretius,  is,  in 
fact,  as  defective,  as  a  mode  of  writing,  as  the  doctrines 

I     which  he  defends  are  destructive  as  a  system  of  philosophy ; 

\     and  this  is  not  the  less  true,  because  Lucretius  himself  is 

]    entitled,  as  a  man,  to  much  respect — as  a  poet,  to  our  most 

'     enthusiastic  admiration. 

The  great  writers  of  Rome  may  be  best  classed  and  ar- 
ranged according  to  the  periods  in  which  they  were  pro- 
duced. The  last  ages  of  the  republic  were  somewhat  less 
perfect  in  point  of  language,  but  perhaps  in  every  other  re- 
spect richer,  than  the  age  of  Augustus.  Cicero,  considered 
as  an  orator,  possesses  great  variety  of  materials,  and  is  suf- 
ficiently skilful  in  his  application  of  them  to  the  purposes  of 
his  art ;  perhaps  the  greatness  of  the  events  of  which  they 


THEIR  INFLUENCE  ON  ROMAN  LITERATURE.     81 

treat,  and  the  high  place  which  Cicero  himself  holds  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  have  conferred  on  these  orations  a  cha- 
racter of  still  higher  importance  than  that  which  they  in- 
trinsically deserve.  It  seems,  at  least,  by  no  means  easy  to 
be  explained,  why  compositions  so  often  overflowing  with 
verbosity,  should  have  come  to  be  considered  as  standards 
of  good  writing.  Even  his  cotemporaries  used  to  reproach 
him  with  imitating  the  swell  and  pomp  of  Asiatic  eloquence. 
But,  in  truth,  the  influence  which  Cicero  exerted  on  the 
literature  and  general  character  of  the  Roman  people,  pro- 
ceeded principally  from  his  having  been  the  introducer  of 
the  more  elevated  moral  philosophy  of  the  Greeks.  For 
those  more  abstruse  speculations,  among  the  labyrinths  of 
which  the  spirit  of  the  Greeks  was  so  delighted  to  find  a  fit 
exercise  for  its  subtleness  and  ingenuity,  neither  Cicero  nor 
any  other  Roman  writer  possessed  either  feeling  or  talent. 
But  as  a  friend  and  lover  of  philosophy,  Cicero  must  ever 
be  conspicuous.  He  found  in  it  consolation  in  private  ad- 
versity, comfort  in  political  misfortunes,  occupation  in  re- 
tirement, and  amusement  in  exile.  The  philosophy  of  Plato 
was  his  principal  favourite  ;  he  considered  him  as  the  most 
happy  specimen  of  an  universally  beautiful  and  cultivated 
intellect,  and  agreed  with  all  antiquity  in  esteeming  his 
works  the  models  of  perfection,  both  in  reasoning  and  in 
language.  But  Plato,  however  skilfully  he  had  elaborated 
the  individual  parts  of  his  philosophy,  had  never  reduced  its 
w^hole  doctrines  to  any  regular  system ;  in  consequence  of 
which  circumstance,  the  later  disciples  of  the  Platonic 
school,  through  the  medium  of  whom  the  w^hole  of  the  Pla- 
tonic doctrines  became  known  to  the  Romans,  had  returned, 
in  a  great  measure,  to  the  prejudices  of  scepticism.  This 
was  attended  with  the  worst  consequences  in  the  department 
of  Ethics,  and  accordingly,  Cicero  very  often,  in  regard  to 
that  subject,  made  use  of  the  doctrines  of  Zeno ;  or  where  he 
found  the  austerity  of  these  too  repulsive,  had  recourse  to 
those  of  Aristotle,  who,  as  he  professed  in  every  thing  to 
prefer  the  medium,  so  in  morals  he  formed  himself  the  me- 
dium between  the  severity  of  Stoicks,  and  the  laxity  of  the 
Epicureans.  To  this  last  school  Cicero  was  uniformly  hos- 
tile, and  certainly  not  without  reason.  It  would,  indeed,  be 
too  much  to  believe  that  all  those  ancient  philosophers,  who, 


82  INFLUENCE  OF  EPICURUS. 

like  Epicurus,  considered  pleasure  as  the  last  and  highest 
end  of  human  existence,  really  extracted  from  this  opinion, 
and  exemplified  in  their  practice,  all  the  evil  which  we  can 
trace  to  the  adoption  of  similar  principles.  But  even  allow- 
ing that  by  this  pleasure,  which  they  considered  as  the  chief 
good  of  man,  they  understood  not  positive  sensual  gratifica- 
tion, as  was  the  case  Avith  Aristippus, — ^but  only  a  painless 
state  of  intellectual  enjoyment,  which  the  best  of  the  Epicu- 
reans, like  the  other  philosophers  of  Greece,  conceived  was 
only  to  be  found  in  the  exercise  of  intellectual  energies,  and 
the  society  of  congenial  friends ; — even  allowing  this,  and 
laying  out  of  the  question  all  that  grossness  of  abuse  which 
has  been  heaped  on  Epicurus  and  his  disciples, — these  phi- 
losophers were  all  in  so  far  wrong,  that  they  taught  man- 
kind to  seek  for  their  best  happiness  any  where  else  than  in 
a  vigorous  discharge  of  their  active  duties  as  men  and  as 
citizens.  These  doctrines  tended,  at  least,  to  make  men  re- 
gard themselves  too  exclusively,  as  beings  independent  of 
political  events ;  and  the  adoption  of  them  at  Rome  was  pro- 
bably extremely  hurtful  to  the  Roman  constitution.  Cicero, 
in  his  enmity  to  Epicurus  and  his  doctrines,  was  guided  by 
the  feelings  of  a  wise  and  reflecting  patriotism.  And  on 
this  account  it  is  that  his  philosophical  writings  have  been 
the  favourite  study  of  many  active  statesmen,  who  had  not 
leisure  to  follow  out  long  trains  of  profound  reasoning,  but 
were  willing  to  diversify  their  moments  of  leisure  by  the  pe- 
rusal of  works  abounding  in  sane  and  rational  views  of  hu- 
man actions  and  principles. 

In  the  form,  as  well  as  in  the  style,  of  his  composition, 
Cicero  is  extremely  unequal ;  but  this  is  a  fault  with  which 
almost  all  the  Roman  writers  are  more  or  less  chargeable, 
and  is,  indeed,  a  natural  consequence  of  the  difficulty  which 
they  must  have  experienced,  in  reducing  that  which  they 
had  borrowed  or  learned  from  the  Greeks,  to  an  entire  har- 
mony with  the  thoughts,  feelings,  and  expressions  which 
were  original  in  themselves. 

We  have  the  first  specimen  of  a  perfect  equality  of  ex- 
pression in  Cossar.  In  his  writings  he  displays  the  same 
character  which  distinguished  him  in  action ;  all  is  directed 
to  one  end,  and  every  thing  is  better  adapted  to  the  attain- 
ment of  that  end;  than  any  thing  which  could  have  been  sub- 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  C^SAR   AND  SALLUST.  83 

stituted  in  its  room.  He  possesses,  in  the  utmost  perfection, 
two  qualities  which,  next  to  liveliness,  are  the  most  neces- 
sary in  historical  compositions, — clearness  and  simplicity. 
And  yet  how  widely  different  are  the  distinctness  and  brevity 
of  Caesar,  from  that  open-hearted  guilelessness,  and  almost 
Homer-like  loquacity  and  clearness,  which  we  admire  in 
Herodotus.  As  a  general  arranges  his  troops  where  they 
can  act  the  most  efficiently  and  the  most  securely,  and  is 
careful  to  make  use  of  every  advantage  against  his  enemy, 
even  so  does  Caesar  arrange  every  word  and  expression  with 
a  view  to  its  ultimate  effect — and  even  so  steadfastly  does  he 
pursue  his  object,  without  being  ever  tempted  to  turn  to  the 
right  hand  or  to  the  left.  Among  these  ancient  generals 
who,  like  him,  have  described  their  own  achievements,  Xeno- 
phon,  with  all  the  perfection  of  his  Attic  taste,  occupies,  as 
a  commander,  too  insignificant  a  place,  to  be  for  a  moment 
put  in  comparison  with  Caesar.  Several  of  Alexander's 
generals,  and  Hannibal  himself,  wrote  accounts  of  the  re- 
markable campaigns  in  which  they  had  been  engaged,  but 
unfortunately,  their  compositions  have  entirely  perished. 
The  Roman,  even  as  a  writer,  when  we  compare  him  with 
those  who,  in  similar  situations,  have  made  similar  attempts^ 
is  still  Caesar — the  unrivalled  and  the  unconquered. 

In  the  drawing  of  characters,  and  indeed,  in  general,  as  a 
historical  painter,  Sallust  has  few  equals ;  but  he  is  neither 
so  clear  nor  so  consistent  a  writer,  nor  endued  with  so  deli- 
cate a  sense  of  propriety,  as  Caesar.  Here  and  there  we 
perpetually  meet  with  something  forced  in  his  style,  and 
detect  the  elaborate  artifice  of  a  practised  writer.  Even  in 
history — a  form  of  writing  which  was  more  easily  than  any 
other  transplanted  to  Rome  from  the  Greek  republics,  where 
it  had  its  origin — the  close  imitation  of  any  individual  model 
never  failed  to  produce  disagreeable  consequences :  and  of 
this  we  have  a  striking  example  in  Sallust,  whose  strict  imi- 
tation of  Thucydides  has  gone  far  to  lessen  the  effect  of  his 
own  great  original  genius. 

In  this  first  flourishing  age  of  Roman  authors,  it  is  easy 
to  perceive  of  what  advantage  it  is  to  the  literature  of  any 
nation,  that  men  of  the  most  elevated  rank  should  take  a  part 
in  it,  and  co-operate  with  their  inferiors  in  the  forwardino-  of 
its  development.     Their  influence  insensibly  extends  itself  to 


84  THE  AUGUSTAN  AGE. 

every  department  of  literature ;  and  their  countrymen  learn 
to  treat  of  every  thing,  and  to  judge  of  every  thing,  as  if  they 
were  all  animated  with  the  dignified  spirit  of  nobility.  It  is 
to  this  circumstance  that  the  Roman  literature  is  indebted, 
for  a  great  part  of  its  characteristic  greatness  of  thought  and 
expression.  As  after  the  death  of  Brutus  a  new  order  of 
things  commenced  in  the  political  world,  the  world  of  letters 
experienced  a  corresponding  revolution.  The  literature  of 
the  age  of  Augustus  is  distinguished  by  a  tone  of  spirit  en- 
tirely its  own.  The  free  voice  of  eloquence  was  stopped ; 
and  the  consequence  was,  that  men  returned  again  with  re- 
doubled aöection  to  poetry,  which  had  been  mute,  in  a  great 
measure,  during  the  tempestuous  periods  of  the  civil  wars. 
Nothing,  it  was  now  supposed,  could  so  well  celebrate  and 
adorn  the  restoration  of  peace,  and  the  happy  reign  of  Octa- 
vius,  as  the  appearance  of  great  national  poets,  who  might 
supply  the  chief  defect  in  the  literature  of- their  country,  and 
create  a  body  of  classical  works,  in  which  the  ancient  Ro- 
man traditions  might  be  handed  down  to  posterity.  With  a 
view  to  this,  not  Virgil  alone,  but  also  Propertius  and  Horace, 
were  flattered,  courted,  and  enriched,  in  a  manner  to  which 
the  literary  men  of  all  other  ages  and  countries  have  been 
strangers,  by  the  liberal  courtiers  of  Augustus.  Propertius, 
by  the  richness  of  his  style,  seems  to  have  been  well  qualified 
for  epic  poetry ;  but  he  would  not  sacrifice  for  fame  the  free- 
dom of  his  own  inclinations ;  he  lived  only  for  himself  and 
those  feelings  of  friendship  and  unfortunate  love,  which  filled 
all  his  soul,  and  which  animate  all  his  writings  with  a  ten- 
derness unequalled  in  any  other  author  of  his  country. 
Horace  perhaps  exceeds  all  the  Roman  writers  who  have 
come  down  to  us,  in  true  feeling  for  heroic  greatness.  H[e 
was  a  patriot  who  locked  up  within  his  owti  breast  his  sor- 
row for  the  subversion  of  the  commonwealth ;  and  who  had 
recourse  to  all  manner  of  pleasures,  perhaps  even  to  poetry 
itself,  with  a  view  to  dissipate  the  grief  with  which  he  was 
oppressed.  On  every  occasion  we  can  see  the  inspiring 
flame  of  patriotism  and  freedom  breaking  through  that  mist 
of  levity,  in  which  his  poetry  is  involved.  He  could  not  in- 
deed have  framed  any  great  poem  out  of  the  early  history  or 
traditions  of  his  country,  without  perpetually  betraying  feel- 
ings which  were  no  longer  in  season,  and  could  not  have 


THE    WORKS    OF    VIRGIL.  85 

been  listened  to  without  a  crime.  He  constrained  his  incli- 
nations, and  endeavoured  to  write  like  a  royalist;  but,  in 
spite  of  himself,  he  is  still  manifestly  a  republican  and  a 
Roman. 

The  calm,  industrious,  and  feeling  Virgil  was,  by  his 
love  for  nature  and  for  a  country  life,  peculiarly  qualified  to 
be  the  national  poet  of  the  Romans.  The  old  Roman,  or  in 
general,  indeed,  the  old  Italian  mode  of  life,  was  entirely 
agricultural  and  rural,  while  the  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  chiefly,  and  that  from  their  earliest  days,  a  trafficking, 
sea-faring,  and  commercial  people.-  Even  the  most  illus- 
trious and  noble  of  the  citizens  of  Rome,  lived,  in  the  best 
days  of  the  republic,  entirely  according  to  the  old  customs  of 
their  countrymen;  and  even  in  the  later  periods,  notwith- 
standing the  great  corruption  of  the  metropolis  itself,  that 
soundness  and  strength  of  moral  feeling,  and  that  purity  of 
manners,  which  belong  to  an  agricultural  and  rural  nation, 
were  far  from  being  entirely  banished  out  of  the  surround- 
ing districts  of  Italy.  To  dwell  on  rural  enjoyments,  and 
make  use  of  simple  feelings,  therefore,  was  quite  necessary 
for  one  who  aspired  to  be  the  poet  not  of  the  metropolis,  but 
of  the  nation.  Virgil's  love  for  nature  and  a  country  life  is 
evident,  indeed,  in  the  first  work  of  his  youth,  the  Eclogues ; 
but  he  has  displayed  it  with  the  richest  eloquence  in  the 
most  perfect  of  all  his  works — the  Georgics.  If  he  had 
only  paid  due  honour  to  this  species  of  poetry,  in  itself  so 
masterly,  so  well  adapted  for  Rome  (restored  as  she  was  to 
peace  after  a  succession  of  wars  and  revolutions,)  and,  in 
truth,  so  kindred  to  the  general  feelings  and  propensities  of 
all  Italians,  and  refi-ained  from  embodying  it  in  the  foreign 
and  artificial  form  of  the  Alexandrian  didactic ;  if  he  had 
only  given  to  agriculture  and  rural  feelings  as  prominent  a 
place  in  his  great  work,  as  they  really  occupied  in  the  an- 
cient ages  of  his  country,  and  so  presented  us  with  one  com- 
prehensive and  perfect  picture  of  the  old  Italian  life, — the 
heroic  traditions,  which  it  was  his  chief  purpose  to  revive, 
would  have  then  obtained  a  faster  hold  on  our  feelings,  and 
a  closer  connection  with  the  thoughts  of  all  men  and  all 
ages,  and,  in  short,  would  have  been  presented  to  us  with  a 
concentrated  spirit  and  a  life,  which  the  plan  he  has  adopted 
was  the  most  infallible  way  to  dissipate  or  extinguish.     The 

8 


86  DEFECTS    OF    THE    .ENEID. 

whole  scope  of  his  heroic  poem  would  then  have  heen  en- 
larged, and  the  connection  of  its  parts  would  have  become 
infinitely  less  artificial.  In  the  very  stifT arrangement  which 
he  has  adopted,  the  latter  part  of  his  poem,  which  is  exclu- 
sively dedicated  to  Italian  subjects,  appears  to  infinite  disad- 
vantage when  compared  with  the  first,  in  which  he  has  so 
happily  connected  the  origin  of  the  Romans  with  the  heroic 
tales  of  the  Trojan  period,  and  made  such  liberal  use  of  all 
the  rich  inventions  of  the  old  poets  of  the  Greeks.  Not- 
withstanding all  these  defects,  however,  the  ^neid,  although 
Virgil  himself  despised'  and  even  wished  to  destroy  it,  has 
always  kept  its  place  as  the  peculiar  national  poem  of  the 
Romans.  Were  we  to  judge  merely  by  the  high  flow  of 
inspiration,  and  the  unlaboured  felicity  of  inborn  talent,  we 
might  perhaps  consider  Lucretius,  or  even  Ovid,  as  a  greater 
poetical  genius  than  Virgil ;  what  secures  to  him  the  pre- 
ference, is  that  national  feeling  which  forms  not  the  occa- 
sional charm,  but  the  perpetual  inspiration  of  his  poetry. 
Still  the  iEneid  can  never  be  looked  upon  as  a  perfect  poem. 
The  same  struggle  between  borrowed  art  and  native  strength, 
which  may  be  remarked  in  almost  all  Roman  poets,  is  evi- 
dent in  Virgil ;  and  in  him,  not  less  than  in  the  others,  a 
consequent  want  of  harmony  in  materials,  and  even  in  lan- 
guage, may  not  unfrequently  be  observed. 

But  if  Virgil  be  not  exempt  from  this  fault,  it  is  undoubt- 
edly far  more  apparent  in  Horace  and  the  other  lyrical  poets. 
The  epic  poetry  of  different  nations  has  always  many  points 
of  coincidence ;  although  it  is  evident  enough  that  the  rigid 
imitation  of  Homer  has  weakened  and  confined  the  genius 
of  Virgil,  and  drawn  both  him  and  many  more  recent  poets 
into  the  most  glaring  errors.  But,  laying  the  form  of  com- 
position altogether  out  of  the  question,  the  heroic  legends  of 
one  people  can  in  general  be  pretty  easily  engrafted  on 
those  of  another.  In  the  early  traditions  of  nations  the  most 
remote  from  each  other,  we  find  invariably  a  thousand  cir- 
cumstances wherein  the  resemblance  is  too  striking  to  escape 
the  most  superficial  observer.  I  shall  not  on  the  present 
occasion  pretend  to  decide,  whether  this  resemblance  be 
merely  the  result  of  a  necessary  similarity  in  the  situation  of 
all  nations  in  the  infant  periods  of  society :  or  whether  it  be 
not  so  remarkable  in  many  circumstances — particularly  in 


THE    WORKS    OF    HORACE.  87 

the  marvellous  fictions  and  not  very  obvious  symbols  which 
have  so  generally  been  adopted,  as  to  warrant  the  conclu- 
sion, that  the  coincidence  could  only  have  proceeded  from 
the  common  origin  of  nations  apparently  the  most  uncon- 
nected. In  serious  dramatic  poetry,  the  knowledge  of  what 
degrees  of  perfection  have  been  attained  by  other  nations,  is 
of  great  use ;  for  it  supplies  us  with  specimens  of  what  may 
be  attained,  and  with  a  standard  by  which  we  may  judge  of 
the  success  of  our  own  attempts.  Still,  however,  the  mere 
form  of  a  foreign  drama  should  never  be  imitated ;  the  stage 
which  aspires  to  exert  an  universal  influence,  must  assume 
a  character  conformable  to  the  manners,  education,  temper, 
and  modes  of  thinking,  which  prevail  among  the  nation  who 
who  are  to  survey  its  exhibitions.  The  drama  is  always 
powerful  exactly  in  proportion  as  it  is  peculiar. 

But  in  no  species  of  composition  is  imitation  so  hurtful 
and  despicable  as  in  lyrical  poetry.  The  whole  charm  and 
excellence  of  this  sort  of  writing  consists,  in  its  being  the 
free  emanation  of  individual  feelings.  The  whole  beauty 
of  it  vanishes  the  moment  we  detect  a  single  trace  of  imita- 
tion ;  it  is  only  tolerable  because  it  is  natural,  and  the  ap- 
pearance of  art  renders  it  immediately  disgusting.  But  in 
the  writings  of  Roman  lyrical  poets,  there  is  nothing  more 
common,  than  to  be  able  to  point  out,  with  the  utmost  pre- 
cision, the  line  where  imitation  of  some  Greek  original 
ends,  and  the  poet  begins  to  speak  from  his  own  feelings. 
It  is  perhaps  the  best  proof  of  the  power  of  Horace's  genius, 
that  in  spite  of  this  defect,  which  is  as  common  in  his  writ- 
ings as  in  any  other,  he  is  still  of  all  Roman  poets  the  one 
who  commands  the  greatest  share  of  our  sympathy,  and  stirs 
up  our  enthusiasm  with  the  most  potent  magic.  His  great- 
ness is  ever  most  conspicuous  when  he  speaks  altogether  as 
a  Roman, — when  he  dwells  upon  the  sublime  magnanimity 
of  antiquity,  on  the  solitary  grandeur  of  the  exiled  Reguius, 
or  on  those  other  heroes  who,  in  his  own  phrase,  "  where 
prodigal  of  their  great  souls"  in  the  service  of  their  coimtry. 

In  satire,  the  only  species  of  writing  which  can  be  said 
to  have  been  an  invention  of  the  Romans,  Horace  is  equally 
illustrious.  This  sort  of  writing — which  belongs  indeed  to 
the  common  class  of  ludicrous  lyrical  poetry,  but  which  re- 
ceived at  Rome  the  rank  and  characteristics  of  a  separate 


88  ROMAN    PROSE    WRITERS. 

species  of  composition,  and  gave  rise  to  a  new  and  less  stately 
form  of  the  heroic  measure — is  exclusively  Roman,  not  m 
these  respects  only,  but  also  in  the  spirit  with  which  it  is 
animated,  and  the  whole  subject  of  which  it  treats.  It  is 
entirely  confined  to  the  capital  itself,  the  social  habits  and 
customs,  amusements,  spectacles,  and  assemblies  of  its  in- 
habitants ;  but  perhaps  its  most  favourite  topic  is  the  cor- 
ruption of  Roman  manners,  which  were  now  daily  ap- 
proaching to  the  last  stage  of  possible  viciousness ;  this  great 
city  having  become  not  only  the  seat  of  universal  govern- 
ment and  wealth,  but  also  the  centre  point  of  attraction  to 
the  whole  family  of  adventurers, — the  magnet  which  was 
perpetually  drawing  within  its  circle  the  collected  filth  and 
worthlessness  of  the  whole  world.  The  only  perfect  pic- 
ture which  poetry  can  set  before  us  of  common  life,  is  in 
the  drama:  individual  traits  or  scenes,  however  masterly, 
can  never  satisfy  us.  The  Roman  satire,  therefore,  in  the 
hands  of  such  a  writer  as  Horace,  is  merely  a  substitute  for 
that  comedy  which  the  Roman  people  ought  to  have  pos- 
sessed. With  regard  to  the  satires  of  Juvenal,  their  chief 
interest  depends  on  the  vehement  expression  of  scorn  and 
indignation  excited  by  the  contemplation  of  the  execrable 
vices :  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  conceived  may  be  morally 
sublime,  but  can  scarcely  receive  the  name  of  poetical. 

In  their  prose  writings,  the  Romans  attained  much  higher 
eminence  than  in  their  poetry.  Livy  may  be  said  to  be  per- 
fect so  far  as  language  is  concerned ;  for  in  him  we  have  a 
faultless  specimen  of  that  rhetorical  species  of  history  which 
was  peculiar  to  the  ancients. 

The  first  half  of  the  long  reign  of  Augustus  commonly 
receives  the  credit  of  having  produced  a  number  of  great 
geniuses,  whose  talents,  it  is  very  true,  were  first  perfectly 
developed  during  that  period,  but  who  had,  in  fact,  been, 
almost  all  of  them,  born  in  the  last  years  of  the  republic ; 
who  had  seen  with  their  own  eyes  the  greatness  of  their 
country,  and  been  animated  in  their  youth  with  the  breath 
of  freedom.  The  younger  generation,  who  were  born,  or 
who,  at  the  least,  grew  up  to  manhood,  after  the  commence- 
ment of  the  monarchy,  were  altogether  different.  In  the 
last  years  of  Augustus  we  can  already  perceive  the  symp- 
toms of  declining  taste;  in  Ovid  particularly,  who  is  over- 


DECLINE    OF    ROMAN    LITERATURE.  89 

run  with  an  unhealthy  superfluity  of  fancy,  and  a  sentimental 
effeminacy  of  expression. 

How  soon  even  history,  in  which  the  Romans  were  most 
successful,  yielded  to  the  depressing  influence  of  the  follow- 
ing CsBsars,  and  became  corrupted,  even  as  an  art,  may  be 
easily  seen  in  the  timid  style  of  Velleius,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  flattering  meanness  with  which  that  writer  often  dis- 
guises the  true  import  of  the  incidents  which  he  narrates. 
The  proper  head  and  founder  of  a  new  and  most  artificial 
taste  in  writing,  which  soon  afterwards  became  predominant, 
was  Seneca  the  philosopher.  The  more  despotic  the  govern- 
ment became,  the  more  were  those,  whose  spirits  were  still 
unsatisfied,  inclined  to  throw  themselves  into  the  arms  of  Stoi- 
cism ;  the  principles  of  that  philosophy  were  agreeable  to 
the  pride  and  freedom  of  strong  minds,  exactly  in  proportion 
as  every  thing  noble  and  free  was  banished  from  the  princi- 
ples and  practice  of  the  tyrants  under  which  they  lived.    An 
unnatural  pomp,  and  extravagance  even,  of  expression,  has 
been,  in  more  instances  than  this,  produced  by  the  political 
and  social  depression  of  a  nation.     But  Lucan  furnishes 
perhaps  the  most  striking  example  of  this  seemingly  strange 
consequence  of  despotism ;  in  him  we  find  the  most  outrage- 
ously republican  feelings  making  their  chosen  abode  in  the 
breast  of  a  wealthy  and  luxurious  courtier  of  Nero.     It  ex- 
cites surprise,  and  even  disgust,  to  observe  how  he  stoops  to 
flatter  that  detestable  tyrant,  in  expressions,  the  meanness  of 
which  amounts  to  a  crime ;  and  then,  in  the  next  page,  exalts 
Cato  above  the  gods  themselves,  and  speaks  of  all  the  ene- 
mies of  the  first  Caesar  with  an  admiration  that  approaches 
to  idolatry.     The  Roman  poetry,  as  if  unwilling  altogether 
to  deny  its  most  ancient  though  nearly  forgotten  destination, 
came  back  in  the  hands  of  Lucan,  to  the  celebration  of  the 
heroes  of  Roman  history.     There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a 
great  historical  event  may  in  itself  be  very  well  fitted  to  form 
the  subject  of  an  heroic  poem ;  how  near  or  how  distant  this 
event  may  be  in  a  chronological  point  of  view,  is,  I  think, 
a  matter  of  little  consequence ;  the  nature,  not  the  date  of 
the  incidents,  should  be  principally  considered.     The  his- 
torical event  which  is  to  form  the  subject  of  an  epic  poem  ] 
should  be  one  wherein  feeling  and  audacity  seem  to  have  ■ 
exerted  a  more  predominant  influence  than  reasoning  and 

8* 


90  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE. 

calculation, — one,  in  short,  which  affords  room  for  the  play 
of  fancy.  The  life  and  achievements  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  for  instance,  the  fall  of  Darius,  and  the  expedition  to 
India,  might,  I  have  no  doubt,  furnish  an  excellent  epic  sub- 
ject in  the  hands  of  a  poet  capable  of  doing  justice  to  such  a 
theme.  The  civil  war  between  Caesar  and  Pompey,  on  the 
other  hand, — a  contest,  strictly  speaking,  not  of  men  or  he- 
roes, but  of  parties  and  political  systems,  has  formed  the 
ground-work  of  several  excellent  tragedies  in  modern  times ; 
but  I  am  at  a  loss  to  conceive  the  possibility  of  its  ever  being 
formed  into  a  fit  subject  of  epic  poetry  by  the  art  or  the 
genius  of  any  writer.  The  picture  of  the  taste  of  this  period 
is  completed  by  the  obscure  Persius,  and  the  forced  style  of 
the  elder  Pliny.  This  last  author  may  furnish  us  with 
some  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  the  Romans  might  have 
enlarged  the  field  of  human  knowledge,  had  they  made  use 
of  the  facilities  which  were  placed  within  their  reach  by  the 
political  position  of  their  country,  and  made  it  their  business 
to  collect  together  the  natural  curiosities  of  the  different 
regions  to  which  their  influence  extended. 

Better  times,  however,  succeeded  to  these;  the  civilized 
world  was  destined  to  be  governed  for  a  season  by  a  genuine 
Roman  of  the  ancient  school,  sitting  on  the  throne  of  Augus- 
tus. As  Trajan  was  the  last  of  the  Caesars  who  thought 
like  a  Roman,  and  rivalled  the  old  Roman  greatness  both 
in  his  principles  and  his  achievements,  so,  very  shortly  be- 
fore his  reign,  the  kindred  genius  of  Tacitus  concluded  the 
series  of  great  authors  whom  Rome  was  destined  to  pro- 
duce. This  writer  had  received  his  education  during  the 
reigns  of  Vespasian  and  Titus,  times  which  appeared  happy, 
because  they  had  been  preceded  by  the  atrocities  of  Nero ; 
he  had  learned  to  meditate  and  be  silent  under  Domitian, 
and  under  Nerva  he  saw  the  beginning  of  that  more  fortu- 
nate period  which  was  to  appear  in  the  fulness  of  its  glory 
under  the  blessed  reign  of  Trajan. 

The  profound  thoughtfulness  of  his  spirit,  and  the  cor- 
responding though  perhaps  yet  more  peculiar  depth  of  his 
expressions,  appear  always  the  more  inimitable,  the  more 
attempts  are  made  at  their  imitation.  Even  in  style,  he 
may  be  said  to  be  perfect,  although  the  language  of  his  day 
neither  was  nor  could  be,  any  longer  the  same  Avith  that  of 


ROMAN  AUTHORS  COMPARED. 


91 


the  time  of  the  great  Caesar  or  of  Livy.  In  these  three 
authors,  according  to  my  apprehension,  the  language  of 
Rome  is  displayed  in  its  utmost  purity  and  perfection :  in 
Caesar  it  appears  in  unadorned  simplicity  and  greatness ;  in 
Livy  it  wears  all  the  splendour  and  ornament  of  elaborate 
rhetoric,  but  is  still  free  from  exaggeration,  beautiful  and  noble 
in  its  construction ;  in  Tacitus,  although  he  is  far  from  either 
the  chaste  simplicity  of  the  one,  or  the  polished  elegance  of 
the  other  of  these  writers,  it  assumes  an  appearance  of  depth, 
power,  and  energy,  to  which  it  had  as  yet  been  a  stranger. 
It  would  seem  as  if  the  memory  had  been  even  more  power- 
ful than  the  presence  of  Roman  greatness,  and  stamped  a 
character  of  loftiness  on  the  historian  of  despotic  cruelty, 
to  which  none  of  those  who  celebrated  liberty  and  victory 
could  attain. 


LECTURE  IV. 


SHORT    DURATION    OP   THE    ROMAN    LITERATURE NEW  EPOCH   UNDER  HA- 

DRIAN^INFLUENCE  OJ"  THE  OPINIONS  OF  THE  ORIENTALS  ON  THE 
PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  WEST MOSAIC  WRITINGS,  POETRY  OF  THE  HE- 
BREWS  RELIGION    OF    THE    PERSIANS MONUMENTS  OF  THE  INDIANS 

MODES  OF  INTERMENT  AMONG  THE  ANCIENT  NATIONS. 

I  HAVE  already  said,  that  literature  and  philosophy  were, 
at  the  best,  plants  foreign  to  the  soil  of  Rome,  and  now  I 
imagine  all  will  be  inclined  to  join  in  my  opinion  who  com- 
pare either  the  number  of  great  Roman  writers  with  that  of 
great  Greek  writers,  or  the  period  during  which  art  and 
literature  flourished  in  Rome,  with  the  time  during  which 
Greece  was  so  eminently  distinguished  for  her  attainments 
in  both. 

Rome  possessed  many  translators  from  the  Greek,  as  well 
as  some  poets  and  original  writers  of  her  own,  from  the 
time  when  the  Scipios  began  to  patronise  Greek  literature 
and  rhetoric ;  when  Cato  began  to  inquire  into  the  history, 
antiquities,  and  language  of  the  Roman  people,  with  a  view 
to  counteract  the  influence  of  the  Greek  taste,  introduced  by 
the  Scipios ;  and  when  Ennius,  in  part  at  least,  began  to 
apply  the  art  and  poetical  measures  of  the  Greeks  to  Ro- 
man subjects,  and  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  Roman  school 
of  poetry.  But  to  complete  the  idea  of  a  flourishing  litera- 
ture, we  require  something  more  than  a  few  individual 
inquiries  and  works,  and  these,  too,  as  in  the  present 
case,  sometimes  not  a  little  at  variance  with  each  other; 
we  look  for  a  certain  connection  and  unity  among  all  the 
parts  of  literature,  a  determinate  and  regular  fixing  of  lan- 
guage, particularly  of  prose;  in  short,  we  expect  to  see  the 
effects  of  general  education,  and  a  wide  spread  cultivation 
of  all  those  branches  of  knowledge  which  regard  either  lan- 
guage, or  rhetoric,  or  even  the  higher  departments  of  philo- 


ADVANCEMENT  OF  ROMAN  LITERATURE.  93 

sophy.  The  literature  of  Rome  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
existed  till  the  time  of  Cicero,  who  had  a  greater  share  in 
its  formation  than  any  other  individual,  and  may,  indeed, 
almost  be  said  to  have  created  the  peculiar  character  by 
which  it  was  at  all  times  distinguished.  Before  his  time 
the  whole  education  of  his  country,  whether  with  a  view  to 
eloquence,  or  in  general  to  polite  letters,  was  conducted  on 
Greek  principles,  after  Greek  models,  and  in  the  Greek 
language.  He  first  demonstrated  the  possibility  of  carrying 
on  an  extensive  and  scientific  education  in  the  Roman  lan- 
guage, by  framing  and  fashioning  its  constructions  so  as  to 
embrace,  in  the  happiest  manner,  the  subjects  of  philosophy, 
and  in  particular  the  theory  of  rhetoric.  The  Roman  lan- 
guage was  not  only  enlarged,  it  was  also  fixed  and  settled, 
by  the  writings  of  Cicero.  To  this,  ,liowever,  many  illus- 
trious writers  contributed  very  greatly  about  the  same  period ; 
above  all,  Caesar  and  Varro,  by  their  grammatical  writings. 
Next  to  Cicero,  these  had  certainly  the  greatest  part  in  the 
formation  of  the  proper  literature  of  Rome :  Cassar,  by  the 
improvement  which  Roman  speakers  derived  from  the  ex- 
ample of  his  eloquence  in  the  senate,  but  still  more  by  the 
labour  which  he  bestowed  on  giving  to  the  language,  of 
which  he  was  so  perfectly  master,  a  scientific  shape  and 
consistency,  and  so  enabling  it  to  effect  its  purposes  with 
greater  power  and  certainty  in  time  to  come :  Varro,  scarce- 
ly less  than  Coesar,  by  his  extensive  erudition  and  the  for- 
mation of  his  great  library,  as  well  as  by  his  profound  in- 
vestigations of  antiquities  and  language.  The  united  excel- 
lencies of  these  three  authors  entitle  the  age  in  Avhich  they 
lived  to  be  considered  as  the  most  important  epoch  of  Ro- 
man literature.  I  have  already  endeavoured  to  give  a  very 
short  sketch  of  the  most  remarkable  Roman  writers  down 
to  the  time  of  Trajan.  The  panegyric  of  that  prince  by 
the  younger  Pliny  may  be  considered  as  the  last  exertion  of 
the  flourishing  literature  of  Rome.  His  virtues  were  well 
deserving  of  such  a  celebration,  but  Roman  eloquence,  after 
this  successful  attempt,  soon  sank  into  a  state  of  utter  de- 
cline. The  imbecility  of  the  imitators  of  Pliny  was  as  re- 
markable as  the  inferiority  of  the  despicable  tyrants  whom 
they  panegyrized,  to  the  manly  virtues  of  Trajan. 

The  classical  period  of  the  Roman  literature,  then,  reckon- 


94  ROMAN  JURISPRUDENCE. 

ing  from  the  consulate  of  Cicero  till  the  death  of  Trajan,  in- 
cluded no  more  than  one  hundred  and  eighty  years.  Within 
the  same  period,  also,  the  science  of  jurisprudence,  the  only 
original  intellectual  possession  of  great  value  to  which  the 
Romans  can  lay  undisputed  claim,  received  its  first  deve- 
lopment, and  began  to  assume  the  appearance  of  a  science. 
Cicero  and  Caesar  were  both  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the 
necessity  which,  even  in  their  time,  existed  for  collecting  in- 
to a  complete  body,  and  arranging  in  a  perspicuous  man- 
ner, the  immense  and  discouraging  masses  of  Roman  sta- 
tutes :  under  Augustus,  and  in  the  reigns  immediately  fol- 
lowing his,  both  departments  of  jurisprudence — that  of  strict 
law  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  equity  on  the  other — ^be- 
gan to  be  valued  according  to  their  merits,  and  to  have  the 
limits  of  their  respective  application  ascertained.  It  was  re- 
served for  Hadrian,  by  the  publication  of  a  complete  code, 
(the  perpetual  edict  as  it  is  called,)  to  accomplish  that  which 
had  been  the  object  of  wish,  rather  than  of  hope,  both  to 
Cicero  and  Caesar. 

With  Hadrian  there  commences  a  period  altogether  new, 
not  only  in  the  principles  of  government,  but  also  in  the  ge- 
neral mode  of  thinking  adopted  by  the  Roman  people.  The 
Greek  language  and  literature  began  daily  to  recover  the 
attention  which  was  due  to  them,  to  receive  ample  atone- 
ment for  the  neglect  under  which  they  had  for  some  time 
lain,  and  to  secure  for  themselves  an  ever  increasing  intel- 
lectual dominion  over  the  whole  civilized  world — united  as 
that  now  was  in  a  political  point  of  view  under  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Roman  Caesars. 

When  the  Roman  writers  of  any  note  were  becoming 
every  day  fewer  after  the  time  of  Trajan,  and  while  of 
these  even  the  best  were  at  all  times  unworthy  of  being 
compared  for  a  moment  with  those  of  the  ages  which  pre- 
ceded them,  the  fate  of  Grecian  letters  exhibited  an  exactly 
opposite  appearance.  The  literature  and  philosophy  of 
Greece  seemed,  about  the  very  period  when  these  were  ut- 
terly extinguished  among  the  Romans,  to  have  received  a 
new  life,  and  an  accession  of  universal  intellectual  activity. 
There  grew  up  forthwith  a  rich  after-crop  of  Grecian  ge- 
nius, not  altogether  unworthy,  either  with  regard  to  its  sub- 
stance or  its  appearance,  of  the  richer  harvest  that  had  gone 


PROGRESS  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE.  95 

before  it — at  all  events,  incomparably  superior  to  any  thing 
which  had  been  produced  for  some  ages  immediately  pre- 
ceding. In  poetry,  it  is  true,  it  does  not  appear  that  any 
thing  either  very  new  or  very  excellent  sprung  up  among 
them ;  but  to  atone  for  this,  philosophy  and  rhetoric  (things 
which  in  the  old  Attic  period  were  regarded  as  altogether 
separate  and  irreconcileable)  began  now  to  be  studied  with 
unprecedented  ardour,  and  blended  together  into  the  most 
complete  co-operation.  The  old  Socratic  method  of  treat- 
ing philosophical  subjects  (a  method  of  which  w^e  have  the 
best  specimens  in  the  dialogues  of  Plato)  could  now  no 
longer  be  adopted ;  the  manners  and  mode  of  life  which  that 
method  took  for  granted  had  entirely  passed  away,  and  that 
simple  form  of  philosophising  was  altogether  unsuitable 
for  those  which  had  succeeded  them.  The  scientific  and 
rigid  accuracy  of  Aristotle  was  at  all  times  adapted  only 
for  a  few.  The  consequence  was,  that  there  arose  a  more 
rhetorical  manner  of  treating  scientific  subjects,  which  con- 
tinued in  fashion  from  the  reign  of  Hadrian  and  the  two 
Antonines,  doAATi  to  the  Emperor  Julian,  and  which  has 
been  adopted,  even  in  these  modern  times,  by  a  great  many 
writers  of  distinguished  eminence.  And  here  I  may  remark 
in  passing,  that  the  Greeks  displayed,  indeed,  at  some  parti- 
cular periods,  the  highest  reach  and  inventiveness  of  poetical 
genius ;  but  that  rhetoric  was,  beyond  all  question,  the  art 
most  particularly  their  own.  It  was  born  with  them,  and 
remained  even  truly  and  indisputably  theirs  from  the  earliest 
times  till  the  latest :  if  now  and  then  it  seemed  as  if  it  had 
deserted  them,  it  was  only  to  spring  up  again  under  some 
other  form,  and  to  cling  to  them  yet  more  fervently  than 
before. 

Among  the  great  crowd  of  writers  belonging  to  this  latter 
period  of  ancient  Greek  literature,  who  are  in  general  useful 
only  as  sources  of  historical  information,  or  as  supplying, 
in  some  measure,  the  place  of  those  older  and  better  works 
out  of  which  they  derived  their  materials,  we  find,  never- 
theless, some  few  who  possess  a  value  more  universal,  and 
more  their  own.  Of  these,  the  first  is  Plutarch,  whose 
Lives,  wkh  all  their  defects  in  writing,  as  well  as  in  thought, 
have  brought  down  to  the  modern  world  a  true  treasure  of 
moral  wisdom,  which  is  even,  at  the  present  day,  altogether 


96  PLUTARCH  AND  OTHER  HISTORIANS. 

invaluable.  His  style  is  overladen,  and  not  unfrequently 
corrupt.  Among  the  overflowing  fulness  of  remarks  with 
which  he  has  garnished  the  lives  of  his  heroes,  we  must  be 
careful  to  make  our  selection ;  there  are  among  them  not  a 
few  which  are  altogether  unsuitable  and  childish.  On  the 
whole,  however,  Plutarch  shews  himself  everywhere  to  have 
been  a  man  of  the  most  praiseworthy  intentions,  and  one 
who  had,  so  far,  at  least,  as  morals  are  concerned,  made 
himself  masler  of  the  whole  riches  of  the  flourishing  and 
classical  ages  of  Greece,  was  familiar  with  all  the  disputes, 
and  penetrated  with  all  the  most  dignified  conceptions  of  the 
old  sages  of  his  country.  In  Lucian,  again,  we  find  the 
clearest  evidence,  that  the  true  elegance  of  Greek  style,  and 
the  spirit  of  the  Attic  wit,  had  not  yet  altogether  passed 
away.  There  are  few  authors,  of  any  age  or  country,  who 
can  be  put  in  the  same  rank  with  Lucian,  as  writers  of  sati- 
rical and  miscellaneous  philosophy.  His  highest  value, 
however,  consists,  without  doubt,  in  his  pictures  of  man- 
ners. Even  in  history,  Arrian  (who  has  been  commonly 
called  the  best  historian  of  Alexander)  deserves,  on  account 
of  his  beautiful  and  unaffected  style,  to  be  placed  near  Xeno- 
phon.  And  Marcus  Aurelius  occupies  so  great  and  glori- 
ous a  place  in  the  history  of  the  human  kind,  that  the  medi- 
tations of  this  last  of  the  great  and  virtuous  of  Roman  sove- 
reigns, written  as  they  are  in  the  Greek  language,  and  ex- 
hibiting the  most  perfect  acquaintance  with  the  philosophy 
of  the  Stoics,  must  always  be  sought  after  with  great  curi- 
osity, and  dwelt  upon  with  the  profoundest  interest,  by  every 
lover  of  virtue,  as  well  as  of  letters. 

The  history  of  the  unworthy  successors  of  Marcus  Aure- 
relius,  is  written  by  Herodian  in  a  style  which  we  could 
scarcely  have  looked  for  at  the  period  in  which  he  lived. 

Antoninus  Pius  was  the  first  who  introduced  into  the 
Roman  empire  the  Greek  philosophers  of  different  sects  as 
instruments  of  education,  and  inlisted,  so  to  speak,  that  im- 
portant body  of  men  in  the  service  of  the  state.  Philosophy, 
particularly  that  of  the  Stoics,  was  now  called  in  to  prop  up, 
if  possible,  or,  at  least,  to  supply  the  place  of  that  popular 
belief  which  was  hurrying  irresistibly  to  its  ruin.  How 
much  the  belief  in  the  old  gods  had  become  sunk  and  weak- 
ened, how  widely  doubt,  freethinking,  and  infidelity  had 


NEW  PLATONIC  PHILOSOPHY.     _  97 

now  become  spread  abroad  in  the  Roman  world,  we  can 
gather  without  difficulty  from  Lucian.  But  the  true  type 
ofthat  universal  fermentation  of  opinions,  and  restless  acti- 
vity of  inquiry  which  distinguished  this  age,  must  be  sought 
for  in  the  most  undisguised  of  all  ancient  sceptics — Sextus 
Empiricus.  We  may  also  learn  from  Lucian,  how  preva- 
lent, at  the  same  period,  was  the  propensity  to  superstition, — 
by  what  rapid  strides  a  sort  of  philosophical  credulity  began 
to  take  the  place  of  the  old  poetical  credulity  of  the  popular 
creed ;  how  a  belief  in  astrology,  and  a  leaning  to  the  ma- 
gical sciences,  were  fostered  by  the  ruling  influence  of  secret 
societies  and  brotherhoods,  till  at  last  they  were  openly  pro- 
fessed in  the  writings,  as  well  as  oral  communications,  of 
the  philosophic  teachers  of  the  day.  The  influence  of  ori- 
ental opinions  and  principles  was,  indeed,  becoming  every 
day  more  powerful,  and  this  introduced,  not  only  a  more 
near  acquaintance  with  the  old  and  pure  fountains  of  truth, 
but  also  a  stream  of  wilder  superstitions  than  could  have 
sprung  out  of  the  cold  soil  of  the  west.  We  can  trace  this 
tendency  to  orientalism  even  in  the  architecture  of  the  age 
of  Hadrian,  which  was  remarkable  for  its  recurrence  to  an 
almost  Egyptian  massiness.  Plutarch,  although  classed 
among  the  followers  of  Plato,  exhibits  the  Platonic  philo- 
sophy under  an  aspect  altogether  new ;  when  she  had  be- 
gun to  embrace  within  her  range  all  the  rules  of  those  ori- 
ginal Egyptian  doctrines  which  were  at  that  time  ascribed 
to  Pythagoras,  and  to  approximate  more  and  more  nearly 
to  all  the  relics  of  that  old  oriental  wisdom,  from  which 
Plato  himself  had  derived  the  most  sublime  of  his  concep- 
tions. 

This  new  Platonic  philosophy  very  soon  came  to  be  the 
only  one  in  vogue ;  the  other  sects,  such  as  the  Sceptical, 
the  Epicurean,  and  even  the  Stoical,  ceased  to  preserve  their 
distinct  and  individual  appearance.  Yet  not  a  few  of  the 
peculiar  opinions  of  the  Stoics  entered  into  the  composition 
of  this  inclusive  philosophy  of  the  later  Greeks,  which  de- 
rived from  the  chief  of  its  component  parts  the  name  of  New- 
Platonic.  It  was  this  philosophy  which,  for  a  long  time, 
contended  against  Christianity  with  the  most  violent  exer- 
tions of  intellectual  strength,  which  had  hopes  in  the  days 
of  the  Emperor  Julian  of  acquiring  an   entire  victory,  of 

9 


98  CHRISTIANITY  AND  HEATHENISM. 

preserving  unbroken  the  old  popular  creed,  and  infusing  into 
it  the  elements  of  a  new  life,  by  interpreting  its  allegories, 
and  spiritualizing  its  personifications. 

This  contest  between  Christianity  and  the  heathenish  phi- 
losophy— ^between  the  old  polytheism  and  the  new  belief,  a 
poetical  mythology  and  a  religion  of  morality — is  the  most 
remarkable  intellectual  contest  which  has  ever  been  exhi- 
bited and  determined  among  the  human  race.  It  forms  not 
only  the  wall  of  partition  between  the  two  worlds — the  ages 
of  antiquity  which  terminated  in  it,  and  these  of  modern 
times  which  sprung  out  of  it ;  in  the  history  of  all  culture, 
it  is  the  keystone  upon  which  every  thing  hangs ;  in  the 
history  of  the  development  of  the  human  intellect,  it  is  the 
central  point  from  Avhich  all  illumination  must  be  derived. 
To  set  before  you  this  great  contest  with  that  clearness  at 
which  a  complete  history  of  literature  ought  to  aim,  to  point 
out  its  influence  not  only  on  language  and  art,  but  also  on 
the  fate  of  nations,  and  the  general  destiny  of  man,  M^ould  re- 
quire limits  which  are  far  beyond  my  reach.  To  give  any 
idea  of  it  which  can  be  at  all  satisfactory,  it  is  necessary  that 
I  should  begin  with  some  inquiries  into  the  peculiar  spirit 
of  the  Greek  philosophy;  that  I  should  point  out  the  place 
which  the  Christian  doctrines  and  Scriptures  occupy  in  the 
history  of  the  human  mind ;  and  that  I  should  briefly  ex- 
plain the  nature  of  those  other  relics  of  oriental  wisdom, 
which  are  in  part  in  harmony  with  the  doctrines  of  Moses 
and  of  Christ,  and  were  in  part  the  most  ancient  fountains 
from  which  the  sublime  visions  of  the  Greek  sages  were  de- 
rived. 

Concerning  those  minor  results  of  this  contest,  which  may 
be  termed  the  ornamental ;  concerning  the  relative  influence 
of  the  two  religions  on  the  beautiful  fictions  of  poetry,  and 
the  progress  of  the  imitative  arts,  I  shall  at  present  say  no- 
thing. Many  opportunities  will  occur  in  the  sequel,  not, 
indeed,  of  doing  justice  to  these  topics,  but,  at  least,  of  apolo- 
gizing for  the  deficiency  both  of  my  plan  and  my  execution. 
For  the  present,  I  must  confine  myself  altogether  to  one 
topic,  to  which,  by  an  irresistible  and  inborn  curiosity,  we 
are  at  all  times  compelled  to  devote  our  first  inquiries,  which 
Ave  never  cease  to  consider  as  the  great  hinge  on  which  the 
whole  history  and  revolutions  of  the  human  intellect  depend. 


PLATO  AND  ARISTOTLE.  99 

Plato  and  Aristotle  were  the  two  greatest  masters, — it 
may  even  be  said,  that  they  alone  mark  on  every  side  the 
limits  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Greeks.  Plato  treated  of 
philosophy  altogether  as  an  art,  Aristotle  as  a  science.  In 
the  first,  we  see  the  thinking  faculties  in  the  calm  state  of 
contemplation,  reposing  with  awful  admiration  on  the  spec- 
tacle of  Divine  perfection.  But  Aristotle  considers  intellect 
as  something  perpetually  at  work,  and  delights  to  trace  its 
unceasing  operations,  not  only  as  the  moving  power  of  hu- 
man thought  and  being,  but  also  as  the  secret  principle  of 
the  activity  of  Nature,  and  the  master-spring  of  all  her  most 
varied  demonstrations.  Plato  is  the  model  of  Greek  art ; 
Aristotle  furnishes  the  best  idea  of  Grecian  science. 

When  Plato  enters  the  lists  against  the  Sophists,  and  pur- 
sues them  into  the  mazes  of  their  errors,  he  displays  great 
acuteness  and  nicety  of  penetration;  but  with  all  his  Attic 
taste,  and  all  his  fineness  of  understanding,  with  all  the 
clearness,  and  all  the  skilful  adaptation,  of  his  language,  he 
becomes  not  unfrequently  dark  and  sophistical,  like  those 
against  whom  he  strives.  But  the  leading  principle  of  his 
philosophy  is  at  all  times  clear  and  perceptible.  From  an 
original  and  infinitely  more  lofty  and  intellectual  state  of 
existence,  there  remains  to  man  (according  to  the  philosophy 
of  Plato)  a  dark  remembrance  of  divinity  and  perfection. 
This  inborn  and  implanted  recollection  of  the  godlike,  re- 
mains ever  dark  and  mysterious ;  for  man  is  surrounded  by 
the  sensible  world  which,  being  in  itself  changeable  and 
imperfect,  encircles  him  with  images  of  imperfection,  change- 
ableness,  corruption,  and  error,  and  thus  casts  perpetual  ob- 
scurity over  that  light  which  is  within  him.  Wherever  in 
the  sensible  and  natural  world  he  perceives  any  thing  which 
bears  a  resemblance  to  the  Godhead,  which  can  serve  as  a 
symbol  of  the  highest  perfection,  the  old  recollections  of  his 
soul  are  awakened  and  refreshed  The  love  of  the  beau- 
tiful fills  and  animates  the  soul  of  the  beholder  with  an  awe 
and  reverence  which  belon?  not  to  the  beautiful  itself — at 
least  not  to  any  sensible  manifestation  of  it — but  to  that  un- 
seen original  of  which  material  beauty  is  the  type.  From 
this  admiration,  this  new  awakened  recollection,  and  this 
instantaneous  inspiration,  spring  all  higher  knowledge  and 
truth.     These  are  not  the  product  of  cold,  leisurely,  and 


100  THE  PHILOSOPHY    OF  PLATO, 

voluntary  reflection,  but  occupy  at  once  a  station  far  superior 
to'  what  either  thought,  or  art,  or  speculation  can  attain ;  and 
enter  into  our  inmost  souls  with  the  power  and  presence  of 
a  gift  from  the  Divinity. 

Plato,  therefore,  considers  all  knowledge  of  the  Godhead 
and  divine  things,  as  only  to  be  derived  from  higher  and 
supernatural  sources ;  and  this  is  the  distinguishing  charac- 
teristic of  all  his  philosophy.  The  dialectical  part  of  his 
works  is  only  the  negative,  in  which  he  combats  and  over- 
throws error  with  great  art,  or  with  art  yet  greater  and  yet 
more  inimitable,  leads  us  step  by  step  towards  the  fountain 
head  of  truth.  But  where  it  is  his  purpose  to  reveal  this 
itself — that  is  in  the  positive  part  of  his  works — he  expresses 
his  meaning  altogether  after  the  fashion  of  his  oriental  mas- 
ters, in  emblems,  and  fables,  and  poetical  mysteries;  ever 
true  to  his  belief  in  supernatural  means  of  knowledge,  and 
acting  in  all  things  as  if  he  were  really  the  organ  of  some 
inspiring  and  awful  revelation.  It  is  not  to  be  denied,  that 
his  philosophy  is  essentially  incomplete,  and  that  he  himself 
seems  never  to  have  attained  perfect  clearness  and  precision 
in  his  conceptions.  This  is  sufficiently  evident  from  the  ill- 
defined  limits  assigned  in  all  his  writings  to  reason  on  the 
one  hand,  and  love  or  inspiration  on  the  other.  When  he 
speaks  of  the  love  of  the  beautiful  and  of  divine  inspiration, 
— when  he  expressly  acknowledges  that  these  are  the  only 
conductors  to  all  sublimer  truths,  and  asserts,  that  they  ele- 
vate us  far  beyond  the  cold  regions  of  human  reason  and 
reflection,  and  reveal  to  us  something  far  more  lofty  than 
these  could  ever  reach, — ^we  are  willing  to  believe  that  Plato 
had  conceptions  at  once  lively  and  feeling  of  God  and  his 
perfection.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  when  he  exerts  only 
his  dialectic  art,  he  often  sinks  into  the  common  errors  of 
his  brethren,  and  seems  as  if  he  acknowledged  no  higher 
idea  of  perfection  than  is  to  be  found  in  that  of  an  unchange- 
able and  unoccupied  unity  of  reason.  It  is  true,  that  in  all 
this  he  was  much  limited  and  fettered  by  the  influence  and 
opinions  of  the  older  philosophers.  In  general,  however, 
his  philosophy  remained  at  all  times  as  imperfect  as  he  left 
it — attributing  all  knowledge  of  divine  truth  to  vague  indi- 
vidual recollections,  and  expressing  it  only  in  dark  hints 
and  forebodings — having,  in  short,  no  higher  merit,  than 


THE    ETHICS    OF    SOCRATES.  101 

that  of  ingrafting-  on  the  old  Greek  philosophy,  and  adorn- 
ing with  all  the  beauty  of  Attic  art,  and  all  the  shrewdness 
of  Socratic  ethics,  some  obscure  recollections  of  the  old  east- 
ern wisdom,  and  some  mysterious  presentiments  of  the  doc- 
trines of  Christianity. 

The  connection  of  Plato  with  Socrates,  in  some  degree, 
indeed,  kept  both  him  and  his  immediate  followers  in 
Athens  free  from  falling  into  the  extreme  of  mysticism  and 
enthusiasm.  His  disciples  were,  indeed,  sensible  in  some 
measure  of  the  imperfection  of  his  system,  but  this  discovery 
only  tended  to  drive  them  backward  to  the  old  refuges  of 
doubt  and  scepticism.  That  leaning  to  mysticism,  how- 
ever, which  was  so  conspicuous  in  his  later  followers,  was, 
in  fact,  inherent  in  the  mode  and  substance  of  their  master's 
principles.  It  is  almost  impossible  that  any  one  should 
receive  the  doctrine  of  a  supernatural  source  of  know- 
ledge in  the  undefined  manner  in  which  he  has  shadowed 
it  out— as  a  dark  recollection — a  mysterious  inspiration — a 
lofty  intercourse  with  the  heavens — without  falling  into  the 
same  errors  for  which  the  New-Platonists  are  remarkable. 
To  put  an  end  to  this,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that 
something  altogether  different,  and  much  more  steadfast, 
should  appear, — something  M^hich  might  elevate  wavering 
and  uncertain  forebodings  of  the  truth  to  the  rank  of  con- 
sistent rules  of  thinking,  and  elicit  from  a  world  of  unsatis- 
fying dreams,  a  sane  and  rational  belief,  worthy  of  forming 
a  rule  and  standard  for  the  whole  life  of  man. 

When  the  later  followers  of  Plato  made  a  systematic  at- 
tempt to  enlarge  his  imperfect  philosophy  by  a  more  liberal 
adoption  of  oriental  opinions,  the  mode  in  which  they  con- 
ducted their  endeavour  was,  indeed,  often  little  in  unison 
with  the  Attic  taste  and  Socratic  spirit  of  Plato  himself 
But  they  did  nothing  w^hich  was  really  at  variance  with 
the  essence  of  his  philosophy,  and  the  recognized  principle 
of  a  higher  source  of  knowledge.  Upon  that  principle,  in 
deed,  all  the  doctrines  and  relics  of  oriental  wisdom  were 
more  or  less  dependent. 

The  great  principle  of  Aristotle  is  by  no  means  so  easy 
to  be  discovered  as  that  of  Plato;  and  the  reason  of  this 
must  be  sought  for  in  his  obscurity,  a  thing  which  has  been 
complained  of  from  the  oldest  times,  and  by  his  most  fer- 

9* 


102  Aristotle's  system  of  ethics. 

vent  admirers.  Yet  the  result  of  every  man's  study  of  the 
spirit  of  his  philosophy  must,  I  apprehend,  be  very  nearly 
the  same,  and  must  be  sufficiently  consistent  with  this  uni- 
versally acknowledged  and  lamented  obscurity.  How,  then, 
happens  it,  that  this  mighty  spirit,  this  perfect  master,  both 
of  thought  and  of  language,  this  most  acute  judge  and  per- 
spicuous reasoner  in  regard  to  all  which  lies  within  the 
limit  of  experience — this  great  and  inventive  genius,  who 
may  be  said  to  have  discovered  the  proper  application  of 
the  instrument,  thought — who  first  reduced  reasoning  to 
principles,  and  reflection  to  a  system, — how  comes  it  that 
he  should  answer  those  most  essential  and  important  ques- 
tions, which  man  never  ceases  to  propose, — concerning  the 
destiny  and  origin  of  the  human  race,- — concerning  God, 
and  the  universe — in  a  manner  so  dark,  unintelligible,  and 
unsatisfactory?  The  cause  of  this  was  his  rejection  of  all 
other  sources  of  knowledge  excepting  only  reason  and  ex- 
perience. The  higher  source  of  knowledge  by  Plato  ap- 
peared to  him  unsatisfying  and  unscientific.  To  reconcile 
reason  and  experience  he  had  recourse  to  many  intermediate 
contrivances.  So  fond,  indeed,  was  he  of  the  intermediate, 
that  he  defines  virtue  itself  the  middle  point  between  two 
extremes,  and  explains  every  moral  evil  as  being  either  too 
much  or  too  little.  In  his  scientific  discourses  concerning- 
the  external  world,  that  he  may  avoid  that  ancient  difficulty 
which  arises  out  of  the  unchangeableness  of  eternal  nature, 
and  the  perpetual  variation  in  the  visible  creation,  he  be- 
takes himself  to  a  similar  solution.  He  admits  that  the  first 
cause,  the  godlike  principle  of  motion,  is  indeed  in  itself 
immoveable,  and  that  in  our  sublunary  world  every  thing 
is  subject  to  the  laws  of  perpetual  variety  and  mutation ;  but 
he  thinks  he  has  found  an  explanation  of  all  our  difficul- 
ties when  he  has  discovered  that  between  those  two  states  of 
things  there  exists  yet  another  world — the  world  of  stars — 
wherein  there  is  to  be  seen,  neither  the  perfect  unmovedness 
of  divinity,  nor  the  perpetual  changeableness  of  earthly 
things,  but  something  intermediate, — a  motion  which  is  im- 
mutable, and  eternal  revolutions  regulated  by  the  most  un- 
varying laws.  In  like  manner,  to  fill  up  the  great  void 
between  the  source  of  reason,  he  introduces  the  idea  of  a 
passive  and  suflfering  understanding,  an  objective  common 


^  PHILOSOPHY    OF    ARISTOTLE.  103 

sense  between  them  both..  All  this  may  be  deserving  of 
much  admiration,  so  far  as  the  invention  and  acuteness  alone 
of  the  philosopher  are  to  be  taken  into  consideration,  even 
although  we  should  find  them,  upon  the  whole,  productive 
of  little  satisfaction.  Nay,  this  method  of  philosophizing 
might  be  productive  of  the  best  consequences,  when  applied 
to  any  separate  object  which  it  is  wished  thoroughly  to  exa- 
mine and  scrutinize  exactly  as  it  stands.  But  with  regard 
to  those  high  questions  to  which  I  have  above  alluded, 
questions  which  it  is  impossible  for  human  beings  at  any 
time  to  pass  over  as  uninteresting,  whose  object  is  to  clear 
up  those  mysteries  which  hang  over  the  destination  of  man, 
the  nature  of  God,  and  the  government  of  the  world — with 
regard  to  all  these,  it  is  not  in  the  power,  either  of  experi- 
ence or  of  reason,  to  afford  any  satisfactory  reply.  The 
experience  of  the  senses  leads  only  to  denial  and  unbelief; 
the  reason  is  soon  bewildered  in  itself,  and  can  yield  no  bet- 
ter answer  than  a  set  of  unintelligible  formulas,  to  questions 
which  are  at  once  simple,  unavoidable,  and  impressive. 
The  philosophy  of  Aristotle  partakes  of  both  these  defects, 
and  is  ever  hesitating  in  the  midst,  between  baseless  ideal- 
ism and  the  system  of  experience ;  if  we  consider  the  greater 
part  of  his  works  and  inquiries,  particularly  those  in  which 
he  treats  of  the  natural  sciences  and  of  morals,  it  appears  as 
if  the  latter  were  preponderant ;  and  Aristotle  takes  his  sta- 
tion at  the  head  of  all  the  empirical  philosophers  of  antiquity, 
not  only  on  account  of  the  extent  of  his  knowledge,  but  also 
on  account  of  the  skilfulness  of  his  inquiries,  and  admirable 
principles  of  investigation  which  he  has  laid  down.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  fundamental  idea  of  all  his  higher  phi- 
losophy and  metaphysics  is,  without  doubt,  that  of  a  self- 
directing  activity  or  entelechia.  If,  however,  we  cannot 
find  in  his  works  any  true  and  consistent  exposition  of  the 
system  of  the  universe,  but  only  separate  inquiries  concern- 
ing its  individual  parts, — if,  when  we  expect  a  definition  of 
the  universe  or  the  first  cause,  we  are  always  sure  to  be  put 
off  with  some  empty  formula  or  bare  abstraction;  we  must 
not  forget  that  these  are  the  faults,  not  of  Aristotle's  intel- 
lect, but  of  the  system  which  he  adopted.  These  are  errors 
into  which  all  philosophers,  both  ancient  and  modern,  have 
fallen,  who  pretend  to  explain  every  thing  by  human  rea- 


104  DISCIPLES    OF    ARISTOTLE. 

son  or  experience,  and  would  admit  of  no  higher  fountain 
of  knowledge,  no  divine  revelation,  or  tradition  of  the  truth. 

Those  who  have  in  philosophy  followed  the  path  of  Aris- 
totle, or  one  very  similar  to  his,  are  indeed  innumerable. 
It  is  true  that  he  had  in  the  times  of  antiquity  comparatively 
few  professed  followers ;  it  is  also  true  that  there  was  a  time  in 
which,  although  a  whole  legion  of  disciples  in  all  the  schools, 
both  of  the  east  and  west,  acknowledged  his  authority,  his 
true  spirit  remained  a  secret  to  all  his  admirers.  Since  that 
period  it  has  become  the  fashion  to  lay  to  the  blame  of  this 
great  philosopher  not  a  few  of  the  errors  of  his  blundering 
disciples,  and  to  vilify  and  underrate  the  stagyrite  with  the 
same  sort  of  prejudiced  ignorance  which  formerly  led  men 
to  deify  and  adore  him.  But  in  every  age,  and  even  down 
to  our  own  times,  there  have  been  many  who,  without  being 
themselves  conscious  of  it,  have  been  steadfast  adherents  of 
Aristotle — many  of  these  altogether,  or  very  nearly  so,  un- 
acquainted with  his  writings,  and  not  a  few  who  have  the 
appearance  of  being  his  most  deadly  enemies  and  opponents. 
I  allude  to  those,  on  the  one  hand,  who,  pursuing  the  course 
of  deep  self-consideration,  have  been  betrayed  into  the  same 
error  of  unintelligible  idealism;  and,  on  the  other,  to  all 
those  who,  from  Locke  downwards,  acknowledge,  even  in 
philosophy,  no  source  of  knowledge  but  experience.  These 
last,  whenever  they  attempt  scientific  experiment,  find  them- 
selves incapable  of  making  any  progress  without  some  ab- 
stract ideas,  and  so  fall  into  the  same  errors  of  formality 
which  are  the  chief  defects  of  Aristotle. 

These  two  great  spirits,  then,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  may  be 
said  to  have  given,  in  some  measure,  a  shape  and  form  to 
the  whole  range  of  human  thought.  They  were,  indeed, 
but  ill  appreciated  by  their  cotemporaries,  but  perhaps  even 
for  that  reason  their  influence  has  been  greater  in  the  after 
world,  of  whose  spirit  they  had  for  many  ages  the  almost 
exclusive  direction,  not  only  in  all  matters  of  abstract  science, 
but  also  in  every  thing  that  relates  to  the  philosophy  of  hu- 
man life.  Even  now,  after  the  human  intellect  has  become 
two  thousand  years  older,  and  been  extended  and  enriched 
by  so  many  discoveries — while  the  number  of  books  which 
Plato  could  have  read  appears  to  us  as  nothing,  surrounded 
as  we  are  by  immense  libraries  of  ancient  erudition  and 


GREEK    PHILOSOPHY,  105 

modern  acuteness — while  we  look  down  upon  tlie  opinions 
of  Aristotle  concerning  the  system  of  the  world  as  altogether 
nugatory  and  childish — while  we  are  in  the  possession  of  a 
religion  which  has  taught  us  more  lofty  conceptions  of  God, 
and  more  profound  knowledge  of  ourselves — it  is  strange 
enough  that,  even  in  the  present  day,  these  two  master  spirits 
still  maintain  their  ground  of  pre-eminence,  and  stand  out 
as  the  great  landmarks  of  intellect.  All  philosophy  is  either 
Peripatetecism  or  Platonism,  or  an  attempt,  more  or  less  suc- 
cessful, to  reconcile  them.  He  that  confesses  any  higher 
tradition  of  truth,  or  fountain  of  knowledge,  is,  without  all 
question,  pursuing  the  footsteps  of  Plato ;  and  this  he  may 
do  without  any  sort  of  servility,  for  the  system  of  Plato  is 
by  no  means  one  of  confinement  and  narrowness,  hut  a 
liberal  and  Socratic  guide  to  all  manner  of  investigations 
and  researches.  For  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  adopt 
the  course  of  reason  and  experience,  it  will  always  be  im- 
possible to  go  much  farther  than  Aristotle  has  gone.  In  his 
own  way  and  his  own  department  he  is  great  and  unrivalled. 
The  world  can  exhibit  few  spirits  which  so  comprehended 
the  whole  experience  of  their  age,  and  required  such  an 
intellectual  supremacy  over  it  as  his,  He  handles  reason 
as  an  instrument,  with  a  dexterity  of  which  I  know  no  other 
example. 

Out  of  these  two  elements  was  the  later  philosophy  of 
the  Greeks  compounded :  it  was  excellent  in  art  and  com- 
prehensive in  science,  but  for  the  truth  it  was  at  the  best  un- 
satisfactory. In  it  the  spirit  of  Plato  was  predominant  and 
the  utmost  which  was  aimed  at  was  to  supply  his  want  of 
scientific  form  from  Aristotle,  and  his  more  serious  defect  of 
conception  from  the  different  opinions  and  traditions  of  the 
orientals. 

The  Greek  philosophy  was  at  all  times  very  different 
from  the  oriental ;  it  was  more  directed  to  the  external  ap- 
pearances of  life,  to  the  beautiful,  and  to  the  forms  of  art. 
Yet,  in  the  midst  of  a  self-satisfaction  and  national  vanity, 
which  we  easily  pardon  to  this  remarkable  people,  we  find 
that  their  more  profound  inquirers,  both  in  the  earlier  and 
later  periods  of  their  history,  were  not  without  a  high  rever- 
ence for  the  depth  and  sublimity  of  the  eastern  'wisdom. 
The  chief  object  of  their  consideration  in  these  matters  was 


106  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  HEBREWS. 

Egypt,  from  which  they,  at  all  times,  confessed  that  their 
own  peculiar  theology  and  traditions  were  derived.  In  the 
remoter  back  ground  of  their  intellectual  world  lay  India, 
The  belief  of  the  Hebrews  remained  always  infinitely  more 
foreign  to  them,  and  their  mode  of  thinking  was  equally  re- 
mote from  having  any  connection  with  the  religion  of  the 
Persians.  With  the  Egyptians,  the  Phoenicians,  and  the  in- 
habitants of  Asia  Minor,  on  the  contrary,  they  were  con- 
nected by  the  tie  of  one  common  religion,  which,  with  many 
points  of  difference  in  the  detail,  was,  in  fact,  in  all  matters 
of  serious  principle  and  import,  radically  and  essentially  the 
same.  The  whole  of  the  other  known  nations  of  antiquity 
were,  indeed,  separated  from  the  Hebrews,  and  in  part  also 
from  the  Persians,  by  the  difference  of  their  religions.  As 
the  Mosaic  writinsfs  were  rendered  into  Greek  in  the  time 
of  the  great  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  it  is  possible,  indeed, 
that  many  critics  before  Longinus  felt  and  admired  their 
sublimity — endeavoured,  as  has  been  often  done  since,  to 
give  to  Moses  a  Platonic  interpretation, — or  even,  as  has 
also  been  a  favourite  notion  with  many  moderns,  attempted 
to  trace  the  doctrines  of  Plato  to  an  acquaintance  with  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures.  But,  upon  the  whole,  the  belief  and 
the  morality  of  the  Hebrews,  as  also  in  later  times  the  doc- 
trines of  Christianity,  remained  altogether  foreign  to  the  no- 
tions of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  They  knew  not  what  to 
make  of  these  remarkable  novelties,  and  even  after  a  more 
intimate  acquaintance  in  the  sequel,  they  never  wrote  as  if 
they  were  at  home  in  them.  Nor  could  it  well  be  other- 
wise, where  even  the  first  and  most  simple  views  concerning 
the  origin  of  man  and  his  beino-  as  well  as  concerning-  the 
sources  of  all  knowledge,  and  the  purpose  of  all  wisdom, 
were  so  diametrically  opposite  and  inconsistent.  According 
to  the  ruling  belief  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  first  of 
the  human  race  sprung  up  everywhere  like  vegetables,  or 
rather  in  the  same  manner  that  the  heat  of  the  sun  calls  out 
living  things  from  mud  and  refuse ;  mere  manifestations  of 
that  activity  and  fermentation  which  is  inherent  in  nature, 
and  leads  her  to  produce  crude  and  imperfect  creatures,  rather 
than  to  produce  nothing  at  all.  In  this  mode  of  treating  the 
subject,  one  clement  of  the  human  being — earth — received 
too  great  a  degree  of  consideration;  the  other,  and  more 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  HUMAN  RACE.  107 

dignified  element — the  Godlike  spark  in  the  human  frame 
— was  viewed  as  the  result  of  a  theft  from  heaven,  and  the 
reward  of  a  successful  knavery.  Moses,  on  the  other  hand, 
taught  that  man  grew  not  up  every  where  and  by  chance, 
but  was  framed  and  fashioned  by  the  hand  of  God  himself 
out  of  the  earth,  in  one  particular  spot ;  and  that  the  spark 
of  divinity  with  which  he  is  animated  was  not  the  fruit  of 
robbery  or  audacity,  but  freely  communicated  to  him  by  the 
love  of  his  Maker.  This  doctrine  affords  the  best  clue  to 
the  history  of  man  and  that  of  his  mind,  and  also  the  best 
point  to  which  we  may  refer  all  the  other  traditions,  and  all 
the  other  doctrines  of  the  East.  According  to  it  the  oldest 
dwelling  of  the  human  race,  and  the  scene  of  their  earliest 
development,  lies  in  the  Middle  Asia,  between  the  Euphrates 
and  the  Tigris,  the  Gihon,  the  Ganges,  and  the  South  Sea ; 
the  present  race  of  men  are  entirely  separated  from  that 
early  people  by  an  universal  catastrophe  of  natural  desola- 
tion. The  nations  which  have  become  again  cultivated 
since  this  catastrophe,  may  all  be  referred  to  three  great 
families,  remarkably  distinguished  from  each  other  by  their 
spirit  and  character.  The  first  is  one  spread  abroad,  for  the 
most  part,  in  the  same  Middle  Asia,  and  from  the  earliest 
date,  more  enlightened  than  the  others.  The  second  is  a 
race  diffused  principally  over  the  north,  of  peoples  more 
rude,  indeed,  but  at  the  same  time  less  corrupted  and  de- 
bauched in  their  manners,  and  on  that  account  destined  to  de- 
rive, in  after  times,  the  chief  benefit  from  the  more  early 
civilization  of  their  eastern  neighbours.  The  last,  a  race  of 
men  which  had,  indeed,  a  very  early  part  in  all  higher 
knowledge  and  refinement,  but  sunk,  even  in  the  oldest  times, 
into  un worthiness  and  neglect,  from  their  fearful  moral  cor- 
ruptions, and  that  mental  bewildering  and  apathy  to  which 
these  gave  birth.  This  account  of  Moses  is  so  confirmed  to 
us  by  all  the  monuments  and  testimonies  of  antiquity  to  which 
we  have  access,  is  so  extended  and  strengthened  by  every  in- 
quiry which  we  pursue,  that  it  is  well  entitled  to  be  viewed 
as  the  foundation  of  all  historical  truth.  The  two  compo- 
nent parts  of  our  revelation — ^the  Mosaic  and  the  Christian 
— form,  in  different  ways,  the  two  centre  points  of  the  history 
of  the  human  race.  Christianity  gave  to  the  whole  civilized 
world  of  the  Romans  a  new  creed,  new  manners,  and  new 


108  PECULIARITIES  OF  THE  MOSIAC  WRITINGS. 

laws,  an  altogether  new  morality,  and  thereby,  in  the  sequel, 
(for  all  art  and  science  must  ever  proceed  from  the  mode  of 
thinking  and  the  mode  of  life,  and  ever  keep  in  harmony 
with  these,)  a  new  and  a  peculiar  system,  both  of  science  and 
of  art.  The  Mosaic  remains,  on  the  other  hand,  can  alone 
enable  us  to  occupy  the  right  position  from  which  all  other 
wisdom  of  the  eastern  nations  should  be  surveyed.  Not  that 
the  civilization  of  some  other  nations  was  not,  in  time,  pre- 
cedent to  that  of  the  Hebrews.  That  such  was  the  case 
among  the  Egyptians  we  have  irrefragable  proof  in  those 
giant  works  of  architecture,  those  monuments  which  are  still 
surveyed  by  modern  travellers  with  the  same  feelings  of  awe 
and  astonishment  which  they  excited,  more  than  two  thou- 
sand years  ago,  in  the  breasts  of  Herodotus  and  Plato.  Even 
before  Moses  there  were  hieroglyphics,  and  he  says  of  him- 
self, that  "  he  was  learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyp- 
tians." With  right  were  science  and  art  (which  are  vessels 
chosen  to  contain  heavenly  wisdom,  and  to  be  subservient  to 
it  alone)  soon  taken  away  from  the  Egyptians,  who  confined 
them  both  within  the  narrowest  limits,  and  converted  them 
to  the  most  unworthy  of  purposes.  The  Mosaic  writings 
possess  this  advantage  over  all  other  oriental  works,  that 
they  alone  present  to  our  view  the  well-head  of  truth  in  its 
original  purity  and  clearness.  But  our  modern  philosophers 
have  been  very  unwilling  to  confess  this,  and  attempted  every 
possible  method  by  which  they  might  avoid  the  result.  Some 
have  ascribed  all  wisdom  to  the  Egyptians  in  the  same  man- 
ner which  was  practised  by  many  of  the  ancient  Greeks. 
Others  have  magnified  beyond  all  bounds  the  merits  of  the 
Chinese,  extolled  their  government  and  mode  of  life  as  the 
most  perfect,  and  the  morality  of  their  Confucius  as  the  most 
pure.  Others,  again,  have  pleased  themselves  with  the  fic- 
tion of  an  Atlantic  antiquity  in  the  North ;  and  some  have 
allowed  themselves  to  be  so  much  carried  away  by  their  ad- 
miration of  the  profoundness  and  beauty  of  the  old  Indian 
books,  as  to  embrace  the  palpably  fabulous  chronology  of 
the  Brahmins,  and  thereby  to  set  all  criticism  for  ever  at  de- 
fiance. In  short,  there  is  no  absurdity  which  some  men  will 
not  swallow,  rather  than  repose  their  belief  on  the  simple 
truth  which  is  before  them. 

Among  all  those  peoples  which  had  any  share  in  that  in- 


THE  HEBREWS  IN  PERSIA.  109 

teilectual  cultivation  of  the  east,  whose  high  antiquity  is 
attested  by  Egyptian,  Persian,  and  Indian  monuments,  the 
Persians  were,  in  their  reHgious  belief,  and  the  character 
of  their  traditions,  most  akin  to  the  Hebrews,  and,  of  conse- 
quence, most  unlike  to  the  Greeks.  Under  the  mild  and 
friendly  protection  of  the  Persian  monarch,  the  scattered 
people  of  the  Hebrews  were  again  gathered  together,  and 
their  temple  rose  out  of  its  ruins.  The  Persians,  on  the 
contrary,  bore  as  great  an  aversion  as  the  Hebrews  ever  did 
to  the  worship  of  the  Egyptians ;  and  it  was  their  desire  ut- 
terly to  extirpate  it,  which  alone  occasioned  their  govern- 
ment to  have  an  appearance  of  oppression  in  Egypt,  to  which 
it  was  altogether  a  stranger  in  every  other  district  of  their 
dominions.  Long  before  the  Greek  Gelon,  with  that  huma- 
nity which  was  natural  to  his  nation,  made  it  a  necessary 
preliminary  to  a  treaty  with  the  Carthaginians,  that  they 
should  "  abstain  in  future  from  all  sacrifices  of  men,"  the 
Persian  king,  Darius,  had  forbidden  that  abomination  from 
motives  of  religion.  The  Persians  honoured  and  recognized 
the  same  God  of  light  and  truth  whom  the  Hebrews  wor- 
shipped, although,  indeed,  much  fiction,  much  mythology, 
and  not  a  little  of  essential  error,  was  mingled  with  their 
knowledge  of  the  truth.  In  the  sacred  Scriptures  themselves 
Cyrus  is  styled  the  servant  of  the  Lord,  a  phrase  which  no 
gratitude  could  ever  have  induced  any  Hebrew  to  apply  to 
an  Egyptian  Pharaoh.  The  whole  system  of  life  of  the 
Persians,  and  all  the  institutions  of  their  monarchy,  were 
founded  upon  this  belief  The  monarch  was  supposed  to  be 
as  a  sun  of  righteousness,  a  visible  emblem  of  deity  and 
eternal  light;  the  seven  first  princes  of  the  empire  were 
meant  to  shadow  out  the  Amhaspand,  or  those  seven  un- 
seen powers  which,  as  the  first  in  the  spiritual  world,  have 
sway  over  the  diflferent  powers  and  regions  of  external  na- 
ture. Such  conceptions  as  these  were  altogether  foreign  to 
the  Greeks.  The  same  Syrian  king  who  persecuted  with 
such  severity  the  Hebrews,  and  endeavoured  to  compel  them 
to  embrace  the  Grecian  superstitions,  was  also  the  persecutor 
of  the  Persian  faith.  Even  Alexander  was  desirous  of  root- 
ing out  the  order  of  the  magi,  not  surely  because  they  as  in- 
dividuals were  obnoxious  to  his  government,  but  because  the 
doctrines  of  their  faith  stood  directly  in  the  way  of  his  great 

10 


110  FAITH  OF  THE  PERSIANS  AND  HEBREWS. 

design.  His  purpose  was  to  blend  Greeks  and  Persians  into 
one  people,  and,  indeed,  it  is  evident  enough,  that  by  no  half 
measures  could  this  end  be  accomplished.  It  was  absolute- 
ly necessary  either  that  the  Greeks  should  adopt  the  worship 
of  fire,  and  desert  those  temples  of  which  the  army  of  Xerxes 
destroyed  so  many,  and  which  all  Persians  abhorred,  as  the 
instruments  of  superstition  and  idolatry ;  or  that  the  doctrine 
of  Zoroaster  should  be  extirpated,  and  the  Greek  or  Egyp- 
tian worship  be  received  by  the  Persian  people. 

The  essential  error  of  the  Persian  creed  consisted  in  this, 
that  acknowledging,  as  was  fit,  the  existence  of  a  power 
hostile  to  light  and  goodness,  they  did  not  extend  their  views 
so  far  as  to  perceive  the  insignificance  of  this  power,  how- 
ever great  its  influence  may  appear  to  be  both  on  men  and 
on  nature,  when  compared  with  that  of  the  Deity,  against 
which  it  contends;  in  short,  that  this  creed  acknowledges 
two  original  principles — sl  good  Godhead  and  an  evil. 

Several  speculators  of  our  modern  times  have  been  so 
much  impressed  with  this  resemblance  between  the  faith  of 
the  Persians  and  that  of  the  Hebrews,  that  they  have  found 
it  incapable  of  being  denied,  and  confined  all  their  exertions 
to  explaining  it.  They  have  said  that  the  Hebrews,  during 
their  seventy  years'  captivity  in  the  dominions  of  the  great 
king,  borrowed  much,  or  rather  perhaps  learned  all  for  the 
first  time,  from  the  Persians  among  whom  they  lived.  This 
wilful  perversion  must  appear  in  its  proper  colours  to  the 
mere  historical  inquirer ;  he  will  at  once  perceive  the  absur- 
dity of  representing  the  connection  between  Persians  and 
Hebrews  as  something  so  young  and  modern,  Avhich  he  can 
learn  both  from  the  evidence  of  the  two  nations  and  from 
the  nature  of  the  thing  itself,  that  in  truth  that  connection 
was  a  matter  of  much  higher  antiquity,  and  is  one  deserv- 
ing of  much  more  serious  consideration  than  the  authors 
of  this  superficial  hypothesis  were  aware.  Besides,  the 
conception  of  it  has  arisen  from  a  mistaken  view  of  the 
whole  question  at  issue.  The  superiority  of  the  Hebrews 
over  all  the  other  Asiatic  peoples  consists  solely  and  simply 
in  this, — that  they  alone  preserved  that  original  truth  and 
higher  knowledge  which  was  intrusted  to  them,  pure  and 
unfalsified,  with  the  strongest  faith,  in  blind  confidence  and 
submission,  like  a  precious  pledge,  or  a  possession   often 


HISTORY  OF  JOB.  HI 

locked  up  against  their  own  use,  and  so  transmitted  to  poste- 
rity unbroken  and  unimpaired :  while  among  all  other  na- 
tions these  things  were  either  altogether  forgotten  or  aban- 
doned, or  mixed  up  with  the  wildest  fictions  and  the  most 
odious  errors  and  abominations.  This,  it  may  be  thought, 
is  a  merely  negative  sort  of  pre-eminence :  whatever  it  is,  it 
belongs  entirely  to  the  sacred  writings  of  the  Hebrews,  and 
in  particular  to  those  of  Moses.  In  these  writings,  what- 
ever is  meant  to  be  a  practical  law  to  the  nation,  is  expressed 
with  the  greatest  accuracy  and  precision.  That  part  of  the 
commencement  of  the  narrative  w^hich  regards  the  internal 
man  is  also  universally  intelligible,  in  so  much  that  it  can 
be  easily  comprehended  by  the  most  ignorant,  by  a  savage, 
or  by  a  child  almost  as  soon  as  he  has  the  power  of  speech. 
All  that  regards  universal  history,  the  ramifications  of  our 
race,  and  the  early  fate  of  men,  (so  far  as  they  have  any 
connection  with  our  religious  belief,)  is  most  clear  and  per- 
spicuous. Whatever,  on  the  other  side,  can  serve  only  as 
an  amusement  of  our  curiosity,  is  wrapped  by  Moses  in  ob- 
scurity and  mystery.  What  he  tells  us  with  hieroglyphical 
brevity  concerning  the  ten  first  fathers  of  the  primitive  world, 
has  been  spun  out  by  the  Persians,  the  Indians,  and  the  Chi- 
nese, into  whole  volumes  of  mythology,  and  been  invested 
with  a  crowd  of  half  poetical,  half  metaphysical  traditions. 
The  praise  of  a  more  ardent  and  poetical  fancy,  £md  of  more 
inventive  metaphysics,  as  well  as  of  a  deeper  acquaintance 
with  nature  and  her  powers,  we  may  easily  grant  to  the 
Persians.  In  all  those  ends,  also,  to  which  these  are  sub- 
servient, as  also  in  astronomy,  the  imitative  arts,  or  in  gene- 
ral in  whatever  became  an  object  of  great  study  among  any 
of  the  other  oriental  nations,  the  inferiority  of  the  Hebrews 
may  also  be  admitted.  But  if  we  are  perplexed  with  any 
of  those  dark  questions  which  make  man  tremble  to  look 
into  futurity,  where,  among  any  other  nation  shall  we  find 
such  answers  as  the  Hebrews  can  point  to  us  in  the  narra- 
tive of  the  sorrows  of  Job  ?  a  piece  of  writing,  which,  consi- 
dered merely  as  such,  is  without  doubt  one  of  the  most  cha- 
racteristic and  sublime  which  has  come  down  to  us  from 
the  ancient  world.  The  peculiar  faith  and  confidence  in 
God  which  were  the  inheritance  of  the  Jews,  are  expressed 
with  less  of  the  Mosaic  mystery  as  we  advance  in  the  sacred 


112  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

volume,  and  appear  in  their  full  light  in  the  Psalms  of  David, 
the  allegories  of  Solomon,  and  the  Prophesies  of  Isaiah.  These 
works,  indeed,  set  them  forth  with  a  splendour  and  a  subli- 
mity which,  considered  merely  as  poetry,  excite  our  wonder, 
and  disdain  all  comparison  with  any  other  compositions; 
they  form  a  fountain  of  fiery  and  godlike  inspiration,  of 
which  the  greatest  of  modern  poets  have  never  been  weary 
of  drinking,  Avhich  has  suggested  to  them  their  noblest 
images,  and  animated  them  for  their  most  magnificent  flights. 
Nevertheless  the  clearness  of  the  Scriptures  is  ever  a  pro- 
phetical clearness,  veiled  in  some  portion  of  mystery,  and 
pointing  to  futurity  for  its  perfect  explication.  Upon  the 
whole,  the  flourishing  period  of  the  Hebrews  Avas  of  short 
duration ;  the  Mosaic  laws  and  rules  of  life  were  never  en- 
tirely reduced  to  practice,  for  the  people  were  at  all  times  in- 
capable of  comprehending  the  purposes  of  their  divine  Law- 
giver. The  sanctuary,  after  being  for  many  years  tossed 
al)OUt  with  the  changeful  destinies  of  a  chastened  people,  ap- 
peared under  Solomon  in  the  shape  of  a  temple.  But  this 
was  soon  destroyed  through  the  guilt  of  the  people,  and  al- 
though, under  the  protection  of  the  Persian  monarch,  its 
walls  were  rebuilt  and  its  vessels  collected,  the  flourishing 
period  of  the  Hebrew  spirit  was  for  ever  gone.  Like  the 
Romans,  the  Jews  also  were  incapable  of  resisting  the  over- 
whelming torrent  of  the  opinions,  education,  and  language 
of  the  Greeks.  If  we  look  merely  to  the  poetical  part  of 
the  Persian  religion,  its  resemblance  is  much  greater  in  that 
respect  to  the  northern  than  to  the  Grecian  theology.  The 
same  spiritual  veneration  of  nature,  of  light,  of  fire,  and  of 
the  other  pure  elements  which  are  set  forth  in  the  laws  and 
liturgies  of  Zendavesta,  breathe  in  a  form  more  entirely 
poetical  out  of  the  Edda  of  our  ancestors.  The  same  sort 
of  opinions  concerning  those  spirits  which  rule  and  fill  na- 
ture, have  given  rise  to  the  same  sort  of  fictions  concerning 
giants,  dwarfs,  and  other  extraordinary  beings,  both  in  the 
old  northern  sages,  and  in  the  still  more  ancient  poetry  of 
the  Persians.  ' 

The  high  antiquity  of  the  Indian  mythology  is  in  the  main 
sufficiently  manifest  from  the  ancient  monuments  of  Indian 
architecture  which  are  still  in  existence.  These  monuments 
are,  in  their  gigantic  size  and  in  their  general  formation,  ex- 


HEROIC  POEMS  OF  THE  INDIANS.  113 

tremely  similar  to  those  of  the  Egyptians,  and  it  is  difficult 
to  suppose  that  their  antiquity  is  not  equally  remote.  All 
these  monuments,  both  the  gigantic  works  of  Egypt  covered 
over  with  hieoroglyphics,  the  fragments  of  the  city  of  Per- 
sepolis  with  their  various  shapes  and  unintelligible  inscrip- 
tions, and  lastly  those  Indian  rocks,  which  we  may  still  see 
hewn  into  the  symbols  of  an  obscure  mythology,  have  an. 
equal  tendency  to  carry  us  back  to  a  state  of  things  from 
which  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  prodigiously  removed  both  in 
time  and  in  manners.  We  may  almost  say  that  as  the  tra- 
ditions of  every  people  go  back  to  an  age  of  heroes,  and  as 
nature  too  has  had  her  time  of  ancient  greatness — a  time  of 
mighty  revolutions  whereof  we  can  still  perceive  the  traces, 
and  gigantic  animals  of  which  we  are  every  day  digging  up 
the  remains ;  even  so  both  civilisation  and  poetry  have  had 
their  time  also  of  the  wonderful  and  the  gigantic.  And  we 
may  add  that,  in  that  time,  all  those  conceptions,  fictions,  and 
presentiments,  which  were  afterwards  unfolded  into  poetry, 
and  fashioned  into  philosophy  and  literature,  all  the  know- 
ledge and  all  the  errors  of  our  species,  astronomy,  chrono- 
logy, biography,  history,  theology,  and  legislation,  were  em- 
bodied not  in  writing,  as  among  us  puny  men,  but  in  those 
enormous  works  of  sculpture  of  which  some  fragments  still 
remain  for  our  inspection.  Of  the  two  great  heroic  poems 
of  the  Indians  which  are  still  in  existence,  the  one  treats  of 
the  achievements  of  Ramo  the  conqueror  of  that  southern 
and  more  savage  part  of  the  Peninsula  which  lies  nearest  to 
the  island  of  Ceylon.  Ramo  is  the  favourite  hero  of  the  na- 
tion ;  he  is  represented  in  all  the  majesty  and  fulness  of 
youthful  strength,  beauty,  nobility,  and  love,  but  for  the  most 
part  unfortunate,  and  in  exile,  exposed  to  unlooked  for  dan- 
gers, Eind  oppressed  with  sorrows  and  afflictions.  This  is 
the  same  character  which,  however  diversified  by  local  co- 
louring, is  to  be  found  in  all  beautiful  and  remarkable  tra- 
ditions of  whatever  nation  and  under  whatever  climate.  In 
the  bloom  of  youth  and  beauty,  on  the  very  summit  of  vic- 
tory, power,  and  joy,  there  often  seizes  irresistibly  on  the 
soul  of  man,  a  deep  sense  of  the  fleetingness  and  the  nothing- 
ness of  that  existence  which  he  calls  his  life.  This  heroic 
poem  of  Ramo  appears  to  me  in  the  state  in  which  it  is  still 
to  be  found,  and  from  the  specimens  of  it  which  I  have  my- 

10* 


114  DOCTRINE  OF  METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

self  examined,  to  be  a  work  of  great  beauty,  holding  some- 
what of  a  middle  place  between  the  simplicity  and  clearness 
of  Homer,  and  that  profusion  of  fancy  by  which  the  writings 
of  the  Persian  poets  are  distinguished.  The  other  great  In- 
dian heroic  poem  which  embraces  the  whole  circle  of  their 
mythology,  the  Mohabharot,  celebrates  an  universal  strug- 
gle, in  which  gods,  giants,  and  heroes,  were  all  armed  against 
each  other.  In  some  similar  fictions  respecting  a  war  be- 
tween gods  and  heroes,  almost  every  people,  which  possesses 
any  ancient  traditions,  has  embodied  its  mysterious  recollec- 
tions of  a  wilder  and  more  active  state  of  nature,  and  the 
tragical  suppression  of  an  earlier  world  of  greatness  and  he- 
roism. However  lately  both  of  these  Indian  epics,  the  Ra- 
mayon  and  the  Mohabharot,  may  have  been  elaborated  into 
their  present  form,  the  essence  of  their  poetry  is  unquestion- 
ably old,  for  it  corresponds  in  all  respects  with  those  sculp- 
tured rocks  and  monuments  which  are  still  the  objects  of  the 
hereditary  veneration  of  the  Hindoos. 

When  we  begin  to  examine  in  what  respects  the  doctrines 
of  India  first  acquired  any  influence  in  Europe,  we  shall 
naturally  have  our  attention  directed,  in  the  first  place,  to  the 
remarkable  dogma  of  Metempsychosis,  which  was  said  to 
have  been  introduced  into  Greece  by  Pythagoras.  Among 
the  Greeks,  this  doctrine  remained  at  all  times  foreign  and 
unpopular.  Among  the  Indians,  on  the  contrary,  it  seems 
to  have  been  believed  from  the  earliest  periods,  wherein  we 
can  perceive  any  trace  of  the  existence  of  their  nation.  We 
might  even  say,  that  not  only  all  the  opinions,  but  also  all 
the  manners,  of  the  Indians,  are  at  this  hour  built  upon  this 
doctrine.  In  India,  it  is  the  first  article  of  faith,  which  it 
was  not  in  Egypt,  where,  although  Pythagoras  may  very 
probably  have  heard  of  it,  it  could  never  have  acquired  any 
regular  belief  or  authority,  unless  I  am  extremely  mistaken 
in  what  I  imagine  must  be  collected  from  the  very  peculiar 
treatment  of  the  dead  which  was  prevalent  among  the  Egyp- 
tians. A  certain  almost  painful  aversion,  and  religious  hor- 
ror, for  the  bodies  of  the  dead,  is  so  deej^ly  implanted  in  all 
men,  that  nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to  diminish  in  us  the 
influence  of  this  feeling.  The  prevailing  modes  of  treating 
the  dead  among  different  nations,  are  not  only  worthy  of 
great  consideration  as  testimonies  of  their  modes  of  think- 


EMBALMING  OF  THE  EGYPTIANS.  115 

ing-,  and  degrees  of  civilization  ;  they  are,  in  general,  over 
and  above  all  this,  very  intimately  connected  with  their  se- 
cret impressions  and  feelings  of  religion.  It  may  be  worth 
our  while  to  pause  over  them  for  a  moment.  The  mode  of 
incremation,  which  was  most  followed  by  the  Greeks,  is  one 
of  very  high  antiquity.  It  is  one  which  is  very  expressive 
of  feeling,  and  one  which  has  something  very  pleasing  in  it, 
at  least  for  the  imagination.  The  spirit  of  life  ascends  to 
heaven  freely  and  purely  among  the  flames ;  the  earthy  part 
remains  behind  in  the  ashes,  and  furnishes  to  the  survivors 
a  memorial  of  the  departed.  The  most  singular,  and  per- 
haps the  most  elevating  of  all  usages,  was  adopted  by  the 
followers  of  Zoroaster,  and  is  still  preserved  in  Thibet. 
From  a  mistaken  idea  that  the  pure  elements  of  earth  or  fire 
would  be  contaminated  by  being  made  the  instruments  of 
dissolution,  the  corpse  is  laid  upon  a  platform  erected  for  the 
purpose,  and  enclosed  with  massy  walls,  and  there  aban- 
doned as  a  prey  to  the  wolves  and  the  vultures.  Interment, 
the  mode  adopted  by  those  who  profess  our  religion,  if  it  be 
attended  with  proper  care  and  attention,  is,  after  all,  perhaps 
the  most  agreeable  to  nature.  We  restore  to  the  earth  what 
was  originally  derived  from  it,  and  intrust  to  her  motherly 
bosom  the  earthly  body,  as  a  seed  sown  for  futurity .  When 
we  know  that  the  body  itself  is  actually  lying  there,  we  have 
a  more  easy,  as  well  as  a  more  impressive,  conviction  of  the 
repose  of  the  soul,  than  when  we  are  obliged  to  entomb  our 
feelings  in  a  cenotaph,  or  see  the  body  of  our  friend  reduced 
at  once  to  the  simple  nature  of  the  elements.  The  remarka- 
ble embalming  of  the  Egyptian  mummies  is,  in  my  appre- 
hension, irreconcileable  with  a  belief  in  the  Indian  doctrine 
of  transmigration.  That  usage  seems  rather  to  set  forth  an 
indistinct  feeling,  that  this  apparently  dead  matter  is  still  im- 
portant to  the  man — some  mistaken  and  imperfect  presenti- 
ment, that  the  bond  between  the  soul  and  matter  is  not  alto- 
gether dissolved,  and  shall  yet  one  day  be  restored — that  even 
this  matter  shall  have  its  portion  in  immortality,  and  be  again 
animated  and  awaked.  Others  have  explained  this  Egyp- 
tian usage  as  if  it  proceeded  from  a  material  way  of  think- 
ing, as  if  those  who  disbelieve  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
would  be  the  most  anxious  to  guard  against  the  total  disso- 
lution of  the  body. 


116  CONCLUDING  REFLECTIONS. 

The  following  appears  to  me  to  be  a  very  natural  suppo- 
sition. In  the  numerous  secret  associations  which  were 
spread  abroad  over  Egypt,  there  prevailed,  without  doubt, 
many  opinions  altogether  irreconcileable  with  the  popular 
belief,  which  was  nowhere,  indeed,  more  superstitious  than 
among  the  Egyptians ;  here  and  there,  it  is  probable,  these 
opinions  contained  light  and  truth  carefully  kept  secret  from 
the  uninitiated ;  at  all  events,  they  were  numerous  and  dis- 
cordant, Pythagoras  might  easily  have  been  taught  in 
Egypt  a  doctrine  which  was  originally  Indian,  and  which, 
in  the  country  to  which  it  had  been  transplanted,  was  neither 
powerful  nor  universal. 

The  Indian  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls  de- 
pended, nevertheless,  on  the  radical  notion,  that  all  beings 
derive  their  origin  from  God,  and  are  placed  in  this  world 
in  an  altogether  degraded  and  unfortunate  state  of  imperfec- 
tion, from  which  stale  all  beings,  and  in  particular  men, 
must  either  decline  gradually  into  conditions  of  yet  lower 
degradation,  or  rise  gradually  to  conditions  of  purity  more 
accordant  with  their  divine  original,  according  as  they  give 
ear  to  the  vicious  or  to  the  virtuous  suggestions  of  their  na- 
ture. This  conception  was,  at  all  events,  compatible  enough 
with  the  leading  doctrines  of  that  Platonic  philosophy — 
whose  general  accordance  with  the  oriental  opinions,  and 
the  influence  which  these  had  on  the  intellectual  character 
of  the  Europeans,  shall  be  the  subject  of  my  next  discourse. 


LECTURE  V. 


LITERATURE,   OPINIONS,    AND   INTELLECTUAL   HABITS   OF    THE    INDIANS    - 

RETROSPECT  TO  EUROPE. 


The  most  remote  country,  towards  the  east,  of  which  the 
Greeks  had  any  defined  knowledge  (and  their  acquaintance 
with  it  was  at  the  best,  extremely  imperfect,)  was  India. 
They  more  than  once  overrun  it  as  conquerors,  and  at  one 
time  possessed,  for  a  very  short  period,  something  like  a  fixed 
dominion  over  a  part  of  its  territory.  The  coasts,  and  those 
other  parts  of  the  country  which  were  most  accessible,  were 
explored  and  examined  by  them  in  a  regular  voyage  of  dis- 
covery. The  commercial  intercourse  with  Alexandria  and 
Grecian-Egypt  was  one  of  long  duration,  and,  without  doubt, 
attended  with  a  very  considerable  flux  and  reflux  of  intellec- 
tual communication.  With  China,  however,  and  the  more 
distant  countries  of  the  east,  neither  the  Greeks,  nor  in  gen- 
eral, any  of  the  ancient  nations  of  the  west,  had  any  direct 
intercourse  ;  their  knowledge  of  these  regions  was,  of  conse- 
quence, altogether  vague  and  unsatisfactory. 

I  have  already  given  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  most 
probable  explanation  of  the  manner  in  which  the  orignally 
Indian  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls  was  introduced 
into  Greece,  through  the  medium  of  Egypt,  by  Pythagoras. 
The  Indian  trade  is  of  such  antiquity,  that  it  ascends  beyond 
the  historical  records  of  any  civilized  nation.  Alexander, 
and  after  him  the  Ptolemies,  above  all  Philadelphus,  gave 
to  that  trade  a  regular  direction,  which  created  the  pros- 
perity and  wealth  of  Eg;y'pt  under  the  rule  of  the  Grecian 
dynasty.  Even  under  the  Romans,  this  trade  still  con- 
tinued to  follow  the  same  channel,  which  is,  indeed,  by  far 
the  nearest  and  the  most  natural,  and  which,  with  many  va- 
riations and  many  interruptions,  was  still  in  the  main  ad- 
hered to,  down  to  the  time  when  the  circumnavigation  of 


118  THE    HINDOOS. 

Africa  opened  up  a  new  path  to  the  adventurers  of  the  west. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  Alexander  and  the  Ptole- 
mies should  have  so  easily  regulated  and  confined  this  trade 
to  the  Red  Sea  £ind  Alexandria,  unless  private  enterprise 
had  before  ascertained  the  practicability,  and  even  demon- 
strated the  superior  advantages  of  that  channel.  The  old 
connection  which  subsisted  between  India  and  Egypt  is  also 
sufficiently  manifest  from  the  remarkable  and  elscAvhere  un- 
known system  of  castes  being  equally  adopted  in  both  coun- 
tries, and  the  strong  general  coincidence  which  may  be  ob- 
served between  the  mythologies  of  the  two  nations.  In  our 
own  days,  this  ancient  relation  between  these  two  peoples 
and  their  theological  belief,  received  a  very  striking  and 
sensible  exemplification.  When,  in  the  course  of  the  last 
war,  an  Indian  army  was  brought  by  the  English  govern- 
ment into  Egypt,  those  old  monuments,  whose  gigantic  pro- 
portions are  ever  regarded  with  undiminished  curiosity  and 
wonder  by  Europeans,  made  on  the  minds  of  the  Hindoo 
soldiers  an  impression  no  less  powerful,  though  proceeding 
from  a  very  diflferent  cause.  They  fell  on  their  faces  in 
supplication,  and  believed  that  they  had  again  found  the 
deities  of  their  native  land. 

The  very  people  of  the  Hindoos,  with  their  manners  and 
ideas  all  belonging  to  a  remoter  world,  with  their  ancient 
usages,  to  which  they  cling  with  so  much  bigotry,  and  with 
their  arrangement  of  life,  so  widely  difl^erent  from  that  of 
any  other  nation,  may  be  themselves  regarded  as  a  living 
monument,  the  one  surviving  ruin  of  another  state  of  man. 
Their  present  degradation  is  an  object  not  of  contempt,  but 
of  sympathy  and  compassion. 

When  Alexander  made  his  incursion  from  Persia  into 
the  north  of  India,  (a  path  which,  before  and  since  his  time, 
has  been  the  highroad  of  so  many  conquerors,)  the  remark- 
able spectacle  of  such  a  people  must  have  made  no  small 
impression  on  the  minds  of  the  Greeks.  Their  wonder 
must  have  been  no  less  than  that  of  the  first  modern  Euro- 
peans, who  found  their  way  to  that  long  sought  land.  The 
Greeks  found  in  India,  as  they  had  before  done  in  Egypt, 
not  a  little  that  was  new  to  them,  and  foreign  to  their  man- 
ners, but  they  were  not  repelled  by  an  altogether  irrecon- 
cileable  superstition,  as  among  the  Persians  and  the  Jews. 


BOOKS    OF    THE    HINDOOS.  119 

Here,  as  in  Egypt,  they  found  themselves  still  surrounded 
with  the  well  known  symbols  of  a  poetical  polytheism, 
which,  in  all  radical  matters  manifested  its  kindred  with 
their  own.  They  even  recognized,  or  thought  they  could 
recognize,  the  same  deities  which  they  had  been  wont  to 
worship,  although  concealed  under  some  considerable  varia- 
tions of  form  and  colouring ;  and  they  shewed,  in  the  most 
striking  manner,  their  faith  in  this  coincidence,  by  the 
names  of  the  Indian  Hercules,  and  the  Indian  Bacchus, 
which  were  afterwards  so  common  among  them.  They 
seized  upon  the  apparent  resemblances  with  the  enthusiasm 
which  was  natural  to  them,  and  traced  them  with  that  keen- 
ness of  penetration  which  was  no  less  peculiarly  their  own. 
It  was,  indeed,  a  ruling  passion  of  the  Greeks  to  magnify 
the  wonders  of  all  that  they  had  seen :  and  of  their  talents 
for  poetical  exaggeration,  we  have  many  specimens  in  their 
accounts  of  those  countries  which  were  first  laid  open  to  their 
inspection  by  the  conquests  of  Alexander.  But  we  must 
not  forget  that  many  things  which  were  looked  upon  as  en- 
tirely fabulous  by  those  ancient  readers  who  perused  the 
historians  of  Alexander,  have,  in  the  course  of  modern  dis- 
coveries, received  the  most  perfect  confirmation  ;  exactly  as 
has  been  the  case  with  some  of  those  yet  more  early  accounts 
of  Ctesias,  which  were  regarded  as  the  most  improbable  of 
fictions  by  his  ignorant  cotemporaries  at  home.  If  we  make 
allowance  for  many  natural  enough  mistakes,  and  apparent 
contradictions  with  regard  to  particular  points,  the  descrip- 
tion which  the  Greeks  have  left  of  India,  agrees,  in  the 
main,  very  strikingly  both  with  the  present  aspect  of  that 
country,  and  with  the  best  sources  of  ancient  information  to 
which  we  have  otherwise  access ;  insomuch,  that  each  may 
reciprocally  serve  as  a  commentary  on  the  other.  The  same 
Indian  recluses,  whose  peculiarities  are  every  day  described 
to  us  with  the  utmost  accuracy  by  missionaries  and  Eng- 
lishmen, with  whose  doctrines,  and  singular  mode  of  life, 
all  the  books  and  poems  of  the  Hindoos  are  filled,  these 
gymnoso'phists  were  found  by  the  soldiers  of  Alexander  ex- 
actly as  they  are  to  be  seen  at  present,  and  excited  in  them 
so  much  astonishment,  that  they  invented  a  new  word  to 
describe  them.  The  Greeks  found  two  ruling  sects  of  phi- 
losophers in  India,  the  Brachmans  and  the  Samaneans,  and 


120  THE  BRAHMINS. 

it  is  still  easy  to  trace  with  clearness,  in  the  old  works  and 
fountain-heads  of  ancient  Indian  learning,  two  separate  sys- 
tems, both  originating  among  the  Hindoos.  The  one  of 
these,  indeed,  which  was  more  recently  introduced  into  India 
itself,  although  it  endeavoured  to  keep  as  near  as  possible  to 
the  ancient  doctrines,  yet,  as  it  was  essentially  hostile  to  the 
distinction  of  castes,  and  tue  exclusive  authority  of  the  Brah- 
mins, it  was  never  received  into  general  favour,  and  has  left 
only  traces  which  it  requires  the  skill  of  an  antiquarian  to 
discover.  Its  unpopularity  in  India,  perhaps,  contributed 
not  a  little  to  its  extensive  reception  in  Thibet,  China,  and 
the  whole  middle  and  northern  districts  of  Asia.  Even  the 
word  Samenean,  by  which  the  Greeks  designated  the  one 
of  the  two  sects  which  they  found  in  India,  is  pure  In- 
dian, and  is  expressive  of  that  internal  equability  and  still- 
ness of  mind  which  is  still  talked  of  as  the  first  step  to  per- 
fection in  all  the  ethical  systems  of  the  Indian  devotees. 
The  name  of  Schaman^  which  is  so  widely  diffused  over 
the  whole  middle  and  north  of  Asia,  and  universally  ap- 
plied to  denote  the  priests  and  sorcerers  of  these  regions, 
is  evidently  derived  from  the  same  origin  with  that  Indian 
word  which  was  first  brought  into  Europe  by  the  followers 
of  Alexander. 

The  older  doctrine  of  India  is  that  which  prescribes  the 
worship  of  Brahma,  and  his  prophet  and  spirit,  creative 
thought  and  lawgiver.  Menu.  The  fabulous  chronology 
of  the  Brahmins  is  carried  by  them  even  into  their  literature; 
they  ascribe  all  their  oldest  works  to  persons  entirely  fabu- 
lous, and  carry  them  back  to  an  antiquity  which  is  altogether 
poetical.  Since  some  European  scholars,  in  the  enthusiasm 
of  their  first  admiration,  have  not  scrupled  to  admit  of  this 
fabulous  antiquity,  it  is  the  less  wonderful  that  others  have 
gone  into  the  opposite  extreme,  and  treated  the  antiquity  of 
all  Indian  works  as  a  fable.  It  is  difficult  to  say  which  ex- 
treme is  the  most  absurd.  The  code  of  Menu,  translated 
into  English  by  Sir  William  Jones,  is  of  all  those  Indian 
works  which  have  been  faithfully  rendered  into  the  Euro- 
pean languages,  the  most  ancient,  the  most  authentic,  and 
the  most  entire.  This  book  of  laws  is  one  of  those  which, 
after  the  fashion  of  remote  antiquity,  embraces  the  whole  of 
human  life,  and  contains  not  only  a  system  of  morals,  and 


TRANSMIGRATION  OF  SOULS.  121 

a  representation  of  manners,  but  also  a  poetical  account  of 
God  and  spirits,  and  a  history  of  the  creation  of  the  world 
and  man.  In  the  same  way  that  the  Greeks  of  the  most 
ancient  period,  before  the  invention  of  prose  writing,  were 
accustomed  to  compose  all  their  histories  and  narratives,  all 
their  books  of  instruction,  their  laws,  and,  in  short,  whatever 
they  wrote,  in  plain  verses,  at  times,  indeed,  entirely  desti- 
tute of  all  poetical  ornament;  so  this  ancient  Indian  law 
book  is  composed  in  a  measure  and  distich  of  the  most  pri- 
mitive simplicity.  Many  of  its  maxims  are  full  of  meaning, 
and  several  passages  are  extremely  poetical  and  sublime. 
That  strange  system  of  life  is  every  where  depicted  and  pre- 
scribed, which,  as  I  have  already  said,  is  throughout  depen- 
dent on  the  idea  of  the  transmigration  of  souls.  Perhaps 
among  no  other  ancient  people  did  the  doctrine  of  the  immorta- 
lity of  the  soul,  and  the  belief  in  a  future  state  of  existence,  ever 
acquire  such  a  mastery  over  all  principles  and  all  feelings, 
and  exert  such  influence  over  all  the  judgments  and  all  the 
actions  of  men,  as  among  the  Indians.  While,  in  the  poe- 
tical creed  of  the  Greeks,  the  world  of  shades  occupies  only 
a  dark  and  remote  place  in  the  back-ground,  and  leaves  all 
the  hopes  and  enjoyments  of  life  to  be  concentrated  upon  the 
present,  among  the  Indians  the  place  of  true  prominence  and 
reality  is  assigned  to  the  future,  and  the  earthly  life  is  re- 
presented as  at  best  an  obscure  introduction  to  that  of  hea- 
ven ;  every  thing  is  viewed  as  preparatory  to  another  state 
of  things,  and  the  present  is  every  where  depicted  as  dark 
and  unsatisfying.  Whatever  is  good  in  the  present  life  is, 
according  to  the  Indian  opinions,  only  a  foretaste  of  futurity ; 
whatever  evils  we  encounter  are  the  consequences  and  the 
punishment  of  sins  committed  in  some  former  state  of  being. 
The  nearest  bonds  of  love  and  nature  derive  from  these 
doctrines  a  new  force.  Father  and  son  are  in  their  inner- 
most being  so  intimately  connected,  that  even  death  has  no 
power  to  dissolve  the  union  of  their  destinies.  Marriage 
becomes  a  more  sacred  tie  when  we  suppose  that  its  endu- 
rance is  not  limited  to  a  single  life.  It  is  this  spirit  which 
breathes  over  all  the  fables,  and  poetry,  and  institutions  of 
the  Indians,  and  which  constitutes  the  true  characteristic  of 
their  opinions.  From  the  descriptive  poems  of  the  Indians, 
we  must  seek  to  gather  what  influence  those  opinions  had 

11 


122  IMMOLATION  OF  WIDOWS. 

on  human  life,  and  all  its  relations  and  feelings ;  what  sort 
of  poetry,  and  what  sort  of  feeling  of  the  lovely  and  the 
beautiful,  were  produced  among  the  Indians  by  the  adoption 
of  ideas  to  us  so  foreign  and  unaccountable.  The  first  things 
which  strike  us  in  the  Indian  poetry  are,  that  tender  feeling 
of  solitude,  and  the  all-animated  world  of  plants,  which  is  so 
engagingly  represented  in  the  dramatic  poem  of  the  Sokun- 
tola ;  and  those  charming  pictures  of  female  truth  and  con- 
stancy, as  well  as  of  the  beauty  and  loveliness  of  infantine 
nature,  which  are  still  more  conspicuous  in  the  older  epic 
version  of  the  same  Indian  legend.*  Neither  can  we  ob- 
serve, without  wonder  and  admiration,  that  depth  of  moral 
feeling  with  which  the  poet  styles  conscience  "  the  solitary 
seer  in  the  heart,  from  whose  eye  nothing  is  hid ;"  and 
which  leads  him  to  represent  sin  as  something  so  incapable 
of  concealment,  that  every  transgression  is  not  only  known 
to  conscience  and  all  the  gods,  but  felt  with  a  sympathetic 
shudder  by  those  elements  themselves  which  we  call  inani- 
mate, by  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  fire,  the  air,  the  heaven,  the 
earth,  the  flood,  and  the  deep,  as  a  crying  outrage  against 
nature  and  derangement  of  the  universe.  We  cannot  so 
easily  come  to  enjoy  the  descriptions  of  the  fearful  deaths 
of  the  Indian  penitents,  even  although  these  are  throughout 
diversified  with  many  touches  of  tenderness  and  feeling,  or 
the  still  more  common  narratives  of  the  immolation  of  wi- 
dows. I  may  perhaps  be  pardoned  for  saying  a  few  words 
concerning  that  most  singular  usage  of  the  Hindoos, — one 
which,  when  the  death  is  altogether  voluntary,  constitutes 
suicide;  when  it  is  the  consequence  of  half-compulsatory 
exhortations,  constitutes  human  sacrifice ;  and  which  is  dou- 
bly terrible  when  it  breaks  the  ties  which  connect  the  mother 
with  her  children.  Europeans  have  not  as  yet  been  able  to 
put  a  stop  to  this  practice  within  the  limits  of  their  govern- 
ment ;  at  least  only  a  few  years  have  elapsed  since  instances 
of  it  occurred  even  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Cal- 
cutta. The  chief  principle  of  the  English  administration  in 
India  is,  indeed,  nothing  else  than  to  rule  the  Hindoos  in  a 
manner  entirely  conformed  to  their  own  customs,  usages, 
and  native  laws,  and  by  doing  so — whatever  instances  of  in- 

»  Translated  by  the  author,  in  his  book  of  "  Über  die  sprach  und 
Weisheit  der  Indier."  §  308—324. 


CAUSES  OF  THE  SYSTEM.  123 

dividual  oppression  may  have  occurred — they  have,  in  fact, 
been  the  benefactors  of  the  Hindoos,  in  delivering-  them, 
from  the  persecutions  of  Mahometan  intolerance.  The  more 
the  English  territory  is  extended  in  India,  the  more  neces- 
sary does  this  systematic  forbearance  for  all  Indian  usages 
become;  especially  since  a  trifling  violation  of  some  pre- 
judices of  the  military  excited  the  alarming  disturbance  of 
Vellore.  It  is  easy  to  see  why  this  forbearance  has  been 
extended  even  to  the  blameable  extremity  of  sanctioning  hu- 
man sacrifices  and  incremations.  These  are,  indeed,  but  too 
likely  to  become  more  and  more  frequent,  as  the  natives,  (at- 
tached as  they  are  to  their  customs  with  the  most  slavish 
bigotry,  and  watching  over  their  preservation  with  the  most 
jealous  solicitude)  come  to  be  more  sensible  of  the  weight 
which  they  derive  from  their  numbers.  The  Brahmins, 
too,  are,  without  doubt,  fond  of  nourishing  the  fanaticism  of 
the  people  by  these  tragic  spectacles. 

It  has  been  often  said  that  the  practice  originated  in  the 
operation  of  jealousy,  and  a  regular  plan  for  the  degradation 
of  the  female  sex.  But  I  am  much  at  a  loss  to  conceive 
how  this  can  agree  with  that  high  reverence  for  females 
which  is  every  where  inculcated  in  the  laws,  and  exempli- 
fied in  the  poems  of  the  Hindoos.  Besides  the  idea  of  de- 
pressing and  despising  the  female  sex  is  one  entirely  at  va- 
riance even  with  the  present  opinions  which  prevail  among" 
them ;  although,  indeed,  it  is  not  improbable,  that  the  exam- 
ple of  their  Mahometan  masters  may  have  in  some  degree 
corrupted  the  purity  of  their  ancient  manners.  Others  have, 
and  I  think  more  happily,  considered  this  custom  of  volun- 
tary burning-  as  akin  to  those  death-sacrifices,  by  no  means 
uncommon  among  savage,  and  particularly  among  warlike 
peoples ;  in  these  the  object  was  to  furnish  the  departed  ru- 
ler or  hero  with  whatever  he  might  be  supposed  to  need  in 
another  life,  such  as  his  horse,  his  armour,  and  his  slaves. 
Sometimes  also,  in  the  agony  of  sorrow,  the  friends  or  the 
beloved  of  the  hero  plunged  into  the  same  grave,  or  ascend- 
ed the  same  funeral  pile  with  his  remains,  that  so  all  that 
was  dear  to  him  in  life  might  be  swallowed  up  in  one  com- 
mon ruin  with  the  illustrious  dead.  Even  in  India  these 
apparently  voluntary,  but  often  reluctant  sacrifices  of  women, 
took  place  originally  only  arnong  those  of  the  warlike  caste. 


124  INDIAN  MYTHOLOGY. 

They  were  never  universal ;  in  the  ancient  times  they  must 
have  been  exceedingly  rare,  otherwise  they  could  scarcely 
have  been  celebrated  as  they  are,  as  specimens  of  heroic  and 
admirable  devotion.  The  undoubting  expectation  of  an  im- 
mediate and  personal  reunion  in  another  life,  must  have 
greatly  contributed  to  render  this  sacrifice  possible ;  but  it 
must  always  be  difficult  to  imagine  how  such  as  were 
mothers  could  venture  upon  it,  especially  when  we  remem- 
ber, that  in  all  representations  of  Hindoo  life,  the  devoted 
affection  of  mothers  for  their  children  is  described  as  being, 
if  possible,  carried  even  farther  than  is  usual  among  our- 
selves. 

Of  all  Indian  poems,  so  far  as  we  are  as  yet  acquainted 
with  them,  that  of  Sokuntola  (which  has  been  translated 
with  the  most  scrupulous  exactness  by  Jones)  is  the  work 
which  gives  the  best  idea  of  Indian  poetry;  it  is  a  speaking 
example  of  that  sort  of  beauty  which  is  peculiar  to  the 
spirit  of  their  fictions.  Here  we  see  not  indeed  either  the 
high  and  dignified  arrangement,  or  the  earnestness  and 
strength  of  style,  which  distinguish  the  tragedies  of  the 
Greeks.  But  all  is  animated  with  a  deep  and  lovely  ten- 
derness of  feeling ;  an  air  of  sweetness  and  beauty  is  diffus- 
ed' over  the  whole.  If  the  enjoyment  of  solitude  and  mus- 
ing, the  delight  which  is  excited  by  the  beauty  of  nature, 
above  all,  the  world  of  plants,  are  here  and  there  enlarged 
upon  with  a  gorgeous  profusion  of  images,  this  is  but  the 
clothing  of  innocence.  The  composition  is  throughout 
clear  and  unlaboured,  and  the  language  is  full  of  a  graceful 
and  dignified  simplicity. 

The  account  which  is  given  in  the  Indian  mythology  of 
the  invention  of  poetry  and  the  Indian  rhythm,  is  entirely 
in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  poetry  such  as  this.  The 
sage  Balmiki,  to  whom  one  of  the  great  heroic  poems  (the 
Ramayon)  is  ascribed,  saw,  as  it  is  said,  two  lovers  living 
happily  together  in  a  beautiful  wood,  when  of  a  sudden  the 
youth  was  murdered  by  a  treacherous  assault.  In  the  midst 
of  his  sorrow  at  this  spectacle,  and  his  compassion  for  the 
lamentations  of  the  deserted  maiden,  he  broke  out  into  words 
which  were  rhythmical ;  and  so  were  elegy  and  the  laws 
of  versification  discovered.  The  whole  poetry  of  the  In- 
dians is  full  of  inward  love,  tenderness,  and  elegy.     Such 


TRANSLATIONS  OF  SIR  WILLIAM  JONES.  125 

indeed  was  the  fit  mode  of  telling  the  story  of  Balmiki, — 
how  Ramo,  the  favourite  hero  of  India,  wandered  in  the 
wilderness — how  he  was  dragged  from  his  beloved  Sita — 
how  she  sought  for  him  long  and  in  vain — and  how  they 
were  at  last  reunited.  But  the  Indian  poetry  is  rich  also  in 
heroic  and  lofty  representation,  and  the  joyful  and  brilliant 
side  of  life  has  its  full  share  in  the  pictures  of  that  compre- 
hensive poem,  which  is  compared  in  the  introductory  hymn 
to  a  mighty  lake.  "  The  hills  of  Balmiki  arise  out  of  the 
lake  of  Ramo,  which  is  altogether  free  from  impurities ;  it 
abounds  in  clear  streams,  and  there  are  bright  flowers  upon 
its  Avaters."  But  in  none  of  the  Indian  poems  is  there  so 
much  of  joy  and  the  ardent  inspiration  of  love  as  in  the 
great  pastoral  of  Gita  Govindo.  The  hero  of  this  poem  is 
Krishnoo,  when  he  (like  the  Apollo  of  the  Greeks)  wan- 
dered on  the  earth  as  a  shepherd,  attended  by  nine  shep- 
herdesses. The  composition,  however,  is  not  so  much  an 
idyll,  as  a  series  of  dithyrambic  love  songs,  whose  high 
lyrical  beauties  (Avhether  the  fault  may  be  in  Sir  William 
Jones  or  in  the  English  language)  are  by  no  means  preserv- 
ed in  the  translation.  The  import  was  perhaps  too  bold  to 
be  susceptible  of  any  literal  rendering.  As  it  is,  Jones  has 
given  us  only  a  faint  shadow  of  the  power  of  the  original. 
Even  this,  however,  is  of  great  value  to  the  lover  of  poetry, 
for  he  may  easily  draw  from  it  some  idea  of  the  beauty  of 
the  Indian  imagination.  The  well  known  book  of  fables, 
Hipotadesa,  on  the  contrary,  is  rendered  with  the  utmost 
accuracy.  It  is  the  first  fountain  from  which  all  books  of 
fables  are  derived.  Its  narrative  is  distinguished  by  the  most 
artless  simplicity  and  clearness,  but  interspersed,  here  and 
there,  with  profound  maxims,  and  many  beautiful  fragments 
of  the  more  ancient  poems.  The  narrative  is,  indeed,  meant 
only  to  serve  as  a  vehicle  for  this  anthology  of  poetical 
images  and  moral  observations.  The  whole  is  admirably 
calculated  to  rouse  and  exercise  the  reflection  of  youth ; 
but  it  contains  so  much  of  what  is  repugnant  to  our  ideas, 
that  we  cannot,  in  fact,  be  fair  judges  of  the  eflTect  which  it 
must  produce. 

The  translations  of  Wilkins,  Jones,  and  those  who  have 
adopted  their  method,  are,  upon  the  whole,  extremely  faith- 
fiil.  Of  the  few  versions  which  have  appeared  in  the  French 

11* 


126  HISTOEICAL  WORKS  OF  INDIA, 

language,  the  most  are  only  slight  extracts;  and  thoi?e 
which  do  set  before  us  the  substance  of  entire  old  Indian 
works,  are  never  executed  from  the  original  language,  but 
from  translations  into  some  of  the  modern  Hindoo  dialects, 
so  that  in  the  course  of  the  double  process  many  blunders 
and  omissions,  and  not  a  few  barbarous  interpolations  and 
additions,  are  to  be  complained  of  This  is  particularly  the 
case  with  the  work  called  Bagavadam,  the  only  one  of  the 
eighteen  Puranas  which  has  as  yet  been  translated.  Other 
works,  the  compositions  of  men  who  were  either  altogether 
unacquainted  with  the  ancient  language,  or  who  were  inca- 
pable of  selection,  contain  only  the  substance  of  oral  com- 
^munications  of  the  Brahmins,  and  extracts  from  older  or 
later  writings  mingled  together  without  taste  or  discernment. 
Roger  belongs  to  this  class,  and  many  works  of  the  older 
travellers,  as  also  the  collection  which  has  more  lately  been 
published  from  the  papers  of  Polier.  All  the  works  of  Ma- 
hometan authors  which  relate  to  Indian  affairs  must  be  used 
with  great  caution.  It  is  true  that  they  are  extremely  valu- 
able when  they  contain  historical  representations  of  the  ac- 
tual state  of  India,  and  the  remarks  of  eye-witnesses,  as,  for 
instance,  the  description  of  India,  which  was  executed  at  the 
command  of  the  Emperor  Akbar,  in  the  Ayeen  Akbery. 
But  wherever  the  Mussulman  authors  treat  of  the  Hindoo 
philosophy,  whether  in  the  way  of  analysis  or  of  translation, 
we  must  be  very  much  upon  our  guard.  Their  mode  of 
criticism  is  childish;  their  mode  of  translating  is  coarse, 
blundering,  and  not  unfrequently  unintelligible ;  but,  above 
all,  they  are  utterly  incapable  of  feeling  or  comprehending 
the  true  nature  and  import  of  opinions  so  different  from  their 
own.  For  these  reasons  one  of  the  very  worst  sources  of 
information  with  respect  to  Indian  antiquity  is  the  Ouknek- 
hat ;  it  is  indeed  almost  entirely  useless,  and  so  much  the 
more  worthless  because  we  possess  many  better  and  authen- 
tic monuments  of  the  same  sort.  The  quantity  of  materials 
is  immense ;  and  the  Brahmins  have  a  passion  for  ascribing 
a  fabulous  antiquity  to  all  works  which  in  any  way  relate 
to  their  mythology  and  their  system ;  so  that  in  truth  no 
study  requires  more  caution  and  discrimination  than  that  of 
the  literature  of  Hindostan. 

In  many  Indian  works  there  occur  copious  notices  both 


INDIAN  MONUMENTS,  127 

of  Alexander  the  Great  and  of  Sandrocottus,  who  succeeded 
Porus  as  his  Indian  lieutenant, — of  these  the  age  is  ascer- 
tained from  internal  evidence.  In  others  we  can  perceive 
allusions  which  shew  them  to  have  been  written  about  the 
time  of  the  first  Mahometan  conquests.  But  here  one  should 
be  very  careful  not  to  come  to  a  hasty  decision  concerning 
the  authenticity  or  age  of  whole  works,  merely  from  meet- 
ing with  particular  phrases  or  sentences  which  may  have 
been  interpolated  by  some  later  hand. 

The  Indian  works  are  destitute  both  of  the  advantages 
and  the  disadvantages  which  they  might  have  derived  from 
being  handed  down  by  oral  tradition  in  the  manner  which 
has  rendered  us  so  very  dubious  as  to  the  original  formation 
of  the  great  old  works  of  Grecian  genius.  It  is  scarcely  pos- 
sible to  doubt  that  the  oldest  of  these  were  committed  to  writ- 
ing as  soon  as  they  were  composed,  for  there  exist  in  India 
specimens  of  sculptured  writing  whose  antiquity  is  at  least 
as  great  as  that  of  any  Indian  poems  now  extant. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  among  the  many  Indian  monu- 
ments which  are  decorated  with  sculpture  (and  almost  their 
whole  mythology  is  to  be  seen  hewn  out  in  rocks,)  there 
should  be  found  no  hieroglyphics.  In  the  Phoenician  alpha- 
bet, and  those  derived  from  it,  (including  the  alphabets  of  the 
west  of  Asia  and  of  Europe,  which  have  all  one  common 
origin,)  the  shapes  and  even  the  names  of  the  letters,  prove 
beyond  all  doubt  that  they  were  formed  out  of  the  hiero- 
glyphics which  preceded  them.  The  Indian  alphabet  ex- 
hibits no  such  traces ;  nay,  its  construction  renders  it  ex- 
tremely improbable  that  it  was  derived  from  any  similar 
origin.  This  is  a  circumstance  on  many  accounts  worthy 
of  much  attention,  in  particular  when  we  reflect  that  by  the 
concurrence  of  all  historical  testimonies  the  use  of  decimal 
ciphers  had  its  commencement  in  Hindostan.  That  was, 
without  all  doubt,  next  to  alphabet  writing,  the  greatest  dis- 
covery of  human  genius,  and  the  honour  of  it  remains  un- 
disputed with  the  Indians.  If,  however,  the  Indian  works 
have  been  more  fortunate  than  the  Greek  in  escaping  the 
dangers  inseparable  from  compositions  handed  down  for 
ages  by  recitation,  they  have  on  the  other  hand  been  so 
much  the  more  exposed  to  the  dangers  of  wilful  falsification 
and  additions.     The  more  apparent  these  are  in  some  works, 


128  THE    BHOGOVOTGITA. 

the  more  are  those  to  be  prized  in  which  we  cannot  detect 
any  traces  of  them.  The  Puranas  (a  sort  of  mythological 
legends)  contain  the  greatest  number  of  suspicious  circum- 
stances. The  works  which  are  apparently  most  free  from 
all  defects  of  this  kind  are  those  heroic  poems  of  which  I 
have  spoken  above.  Perhaps  of  all  known  books  there  is 
none  which  carries  with  it  more  convincing  proofs  both  of 
high  antiquity  and  perfect  integrity  than  the  law  book  of 
Menu?  Whoever  has  any  acquaintance  with  researches  and 
doubts  of  this  sort,  will  feel,  even  in  reading  the  translation, 
that  he  has  before  him  a  genuine  monument  of  antiquity. 
Sir  William  Jones  (the  greatest  orientalist  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  one  of  the  most  accomplished  scholars  to  which 
England  has  ever  given  birth)  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that 
this  book  is  of  an  age  somewhere  between  Homer  and  the 
Twelve  Tables  of  the  Romans.  I  think  he  has  supported 
this  opinion  with  very  convincing  arguments,  and  I  have 
indeed  no  doubt,  that  both  the  book  of  Menu  and  some 
others  might  have  been  seen  by  Alexander  the  Great  in  a 
state  not  materially  different  from  that  in  which  we  possess 
them. 

After  the  code  of  Menu,  among  books  valuable  as  guides 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  Indian  opinions,  the  first  place  be- 
longs to  that  didactic  poem,  which  has  been  translated  by 
Wilkins,  under  the  name  of  the  Bhogovotgita.  This  con- 
tains an  account  of  the  modern  system  of  Indian  philosophy, 
a  system  originally  of  the  same  nature  with  the  doctrine  of 
that  other  religious  sect  or  party  which  the  Greeks  found  in 
India,  and  called,  by  way  of  distinguishing  them  from  the 
Brachmans,  by  the  name  of  I^a/navaioi.  It  is,  in  truth,  only 
an  episode  of  one  of  the  great  heroic  poems,  the  Mokabharot, 
but  it  is  throughout  philosophical,  and  its  contents  are  such 
that  it  may  be  considered  as  a  complete  epitome  of  Indian 
mystics.  It  is  still  in  great  repute,  and  is,  in  fact,  an  abstract 
of  the  prevalent  opinions  of  the  present  day.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark  that  the  deities  chiefly  praised  and  exalted  in  thia 
book  are  ones  in  a  great  measure  unknown  to  the  ancient 
law-book,  or  at  least  occupy  in  it  a  much  more  humble  situa- 
tion; there  prevails,  indeed,  in  the  Bhogovotgita  a  very  evi- 
dent tendency  to  combat  on  all  occasions  the  more  ancient 
system,  the  vedas,  and  the  whole  doctrine  of  polytheism.     Its 


INDIAN  RECLUSES.  129 

doctrine  is  one  of  an  absolute  divine  unity,  in  which  all  dif- 
ferences disappear,  and  into  whose  abyss  all  things  are 
gathered.  Yet  whenever  mention  is  made  of  mythology 
the  belief  inculcated  is  that  of  a  poetical  pantheism.  Not 
unlike  the  New  Platonic  philosophy,  which,  although 
breathing  the  same  spirit  of  unity,  lent  itself  to  the  cause  of 
external  polytheism,  in  the  hope  of  infusing  a  new  life  into 
the  superannuated  superstitions  of  the  Greeks.  The  wor- 
ship of  Vishnoo  and  Krishnoo,  which  is  now  the  preijailing 
one  in  Hindostan,  differs  very  little,  so  far  at  least  as  it  is 
here  described,  from  the  religion  of  Budha  and  Fo,  which 
was,  as  we  know,  established  in  Thibet  and  China,  during 
the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era,  and  which  has  been 
so  diffused  over  the  middle  and  northern  countries  of  Asia, 
by  the  preaching  of  the  Schamans.  The  principal  differ- 
ence consists  in  this,  that  the  worshippers  of  Vishnoo  have 
found  themselves  obliged  to  retain  the  system  of  castes, 
while  it  has  been  long  since  entirely  abolished  by  those  of 
Budha.  The  recluses  or  G5rmnosophists,  which  appeared 
so  remarkable  to  the  Greeks,  belong  to  both  of  the  two  sects 
of  Indian  philosophers,  and  act  upon  principles  equally  ac- 
knowledge by  them  both.  Their  retirement  from  the  world, 
their  mode  of  life,  altogether  devoted  to  contemplation,  even 
their  violent  penitences,  cannot  fail  to  recal  our  recollection 
very  forcibly  to  the  first  Christian  recluses  of  Egypt.  But 
there  is  one  great  point  of  difference  between  them.  That 
man  must  in  a  certain  sense  abstract  himself  from  the  world 
and  its  concerns,  in  order  to  be  able  to  live  only  for  himself, 
is  a  thought  so  natural,  that  upon  it  were  founded  all  the 
systems  of  Grecian  ethics.  More  inquirers  than  one  have 
been  very  fond  of  observing  the  coincidence  between  the  life 
of  entire  abstraction  and  uncitizenship  recommended  by  some 
of  the  Greek  sects,  and  that  adopted  by  the  Christian  recluses. 
Not  only  Plato,  but  even  Aristotle  himself,  (the  most  prac- 
tical of  philosophers,)  is  inclined  to  give  to  the  life  of  retire- 
ment, and  meditation  devoted  to  internal  energies,  a  decided 
preference  over  that  of  external  exertion.  But  even  if  we 
should  be  disposed  to  admit  that  the  individual  recluse  may 
thus  be  furnished  with  a  good  opportunity  for  cultivating  his 
own  intellect,  there  is  no  question  but  the  whole  society  must 
be  a  joser,  by  the  most  cultivated  intellects  being  withdrawn 


130  HINDOOS  AND  CHRISTIANS  COMPARED. 

from  its  service.     The  principle,  that  man,  in  order  to  reach 
his  highest  perfection,  must  learn  to  give  up  himself  and  his 
bodily  enjoyments,  is  one  Avhich  cannot,  I  think,  be  much 
controverted ;  but  that  sort  of  living  death,  and  that  series  of 
penances  and  martyrdoms  which  are  in  credit  among  the  In- 
dian devotees,  have  an  evident  tendency  to  stupify  and  blunt 
the  mind,  to  lead  us  into  a  world  of  sleepy  superstitions,  and 
above  all  to  nurture  within  us  a  sort  of  spiritual  pride  and 
vanit)^ which  it  should  above  all  things  be  the  object  of  a 
philosopher  to  avoid.     According  to  the  true  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  external  abstraction  from  the  duties  of  citizenship 
ought  to  be  connected  with  the  highest  internal  activity,  not 
only  of  the  spirit,  but  of  the  heart,  and  thereby  re-operate  in 
the  most  beneficial  manner  on  all  the  constitutions  of  the  so- 
ciety which  is  abandoned.     The  whole  activity  of  citizen- 
ship, all  its  duties  and  labours,  are,  after  all,  directed  only  to 
a  few  leading  purposes,  and  confined  within  certain  limits. 
There  remains  ever  a  yet  wider  sphere  for  the  exercise  of 
that  restless  activity  by  which  man  is  tempted  to  struggle  for 
every  thing  that  is  within  his  reach.     This  is  afTorded,  for 
example,  in  the  first  ages  of  national  development,  by  the 
sciences  and  the  arts  of  peace.     When  the  state  is  so  far  ad- 
vanced that  these  are  taken  into  the  circle  of  active  employ- 
ment, there  still  remain  the  needful  to  be  assisted,  and  the 
sorrowful  to  be  comforted :  or  if  these  be  all  removed,  there 
remain  yet  higher  duties,  such  as  to  prepare  men  for  ends 
more  exalted  than  any  duties  of  citizenship,  or  to  watch  over 
the  truth  in  the  midst  of  times  of  moral  relaxation,  to  guard 
it  from  the  slow  poison  of  forgetfiilness,  and  transmit  it  to 
posterity  in  all  its  original  soundness  and  integrity.     These 
are  the  things  which  draw  a  line  of  essential  distinction  be- 
tween those  Christian  recluses  who  renounce  the  world  that 
they  may  live  entirely  for  their  higher  calling,  and  the  slug- 
gish degradation  of  the  indolent  and  self-torturing  Hindoos. 
But  this  propensity  to  a  life  of  retirement  and  contem- 
plation is  by  no  means  the  only  point  of  resemblance  between 
the  Hindoos  and  the  Christians.     The  Indian  idea  of  a  three- 
fold Godhead  is  one,  I  confess,  upon  which  I  am  inclined  to 
lay  very  little  stress.     Some  such  division,  some  allusion  to 
a  threefold  principle  is  to  be  found  in  the  religion  of  most 
peoples,  as  well  as  in  the  systems  of  most  philosophers.     It 


RELIGIOUS  CREED  OF  INDIA.  131 

is  the  universal  form  of  being-  given  by  the  first  cause  to  all 
his  works,  the  seal  of  the  Deity,  if  we  may  so  speak,  stamped 
on  all  the  thoughts  of  the  mind  and  all  the  forms  of  nature. 
The  Indian  doctrine  of  a  threefold  principle  is  extremely 
different  from  ours,  and,  at  least  in  the  manner  in  which  they 
themselves  explain  it,  is  extremely  absurd ;  for  the  cause  of 
destruction  is  by  it  supposed  to  form  part  of  the  highest  be- 
ing. That  principle  of  evil,  which,  in  the  Persian  theology, 
is  represented  as  in  perpetual  opposition  to  the  Godhead,  is 
by  the  Indian  divines  united  with  the  creating  and  preserving 
power,  to  make  up  the  being  of  the  Deity  himself  God  is, 
according  to  their  first  maxim,  "  all  in  all,"  and  they  think 
that  it  is  as  much  a  part  of  his  prerogative  to  be  the  cause  of 
all  the  evil  in  the  world  as  of  all  the  good. 

The  idea  of  incarnation,  so  prevalent  among  the  Indians, 
bears  little  resemblance  to  any  thing  in  our  religion,  and  is 
indeed  every  where  overburdened  with  the  most  absurd  fa- 
bles. We  may  trace  a  much  more  solid  resemblance  in 
those  ruling  feelings  both  of  life  and  of  poetry  to  which  I 
have  already  directed  your  attention.  In  all  the  poems  and 
works  of  our  ancients  (the  Greeks)  we  cannot  but  be  sensi- 
ble of  an  excessive  repose ;  they  who  are  best  able  to  ap- 
preciate the  beauty  of  their  writings  will  agree  with  me  in 
thinking  that,  even  in  those  cases  where  the  most  open  ex- 
pression of  deep  feeling,  morality,  or  conscience,  might  have 
been  expected,  the  Greek  authors  are  apt  to  view  the  subject 
of  which  they  treat  as  a  mere  external  appearance  of  life, 
with  a  certain  perfect,  undisturbed,  and  elaborate  equability. 
The  feelings  whose  expression  would  in  many  cases  be  the 
most  appropriate,  are  to  them  uncustomary  or  unknown. 
We  may  well  say  that  repentance  and  hope  (I  mean  that 
higher  hope  which  has  eternity  for  its  object)  are  Christian 
feelinsfs.  Akin  to  these  are  all  feeling-s  and  sentiments 
which  are  connected  with  the  present  abject  condition  of  our 
being,  and  a  sense  of  the  perfection  from  which  we  are 
fallen.  But  among  the  Indians  the  feeling  and  sympathy  of 
guilt  are  above  all  others  predominant.  I  have  already 
mentioned  that  according  to  their  descriptions  of  a  moral 
transgression,  it  is  something  of  which  all  nature  is  con- 
scious— an  outrage  against  the  universe.  The  solitary  voice 
in  the  heart,  for  such  is  the  name  by  which  conscience  is 


132  CREED  OF  THE  BRAHMINS. 

called,  opens  to  us  a  new  sense,  an  ear,  as  it  were,  by  which 
we  gain  acquaintance  with  the  affairs  of  a  world,  which 
would  otherwise  he  entirely  imperceptible  to  us.  But  this 
voice  is  but  too  often  drowned  in  the  noise  and  tumult  of  the 
world,  and  in  order  to  have  its  suggestions  brought  with 
more  power  before  our  minds,  we  require  to  observe  the 
effects  wliich  the  same  offences  that  call  down  its  reproaches 
produce  on  the  feelings  of  those  around  us.  On  such  ideas 
and  such  feelings  as  these  not  only  has  the  Indian  imagina- 
tion explained  all  the  outward  appearances  of  life ;  the  whole 
of  nature  assumes  a  similar  form.  In  every  thing  that  sur- 
rounds him  the  Indian  sees  beings  endowed  with  a  nature 
and  feelings  like  his  o^vn,  suffering  like  himself  under  the 
burden  of  former  transgressions,  enclosed  like  him  in  some 
temporary  form  of  unworthiness,  but  still  capable  like  him 
of  all  the  tenderness  of  recollection  and  all  the  disconsolate- 
ness  of  foresight.  He  is  united  with  all  nature  by  the  ties  of 
brotherhood,  and  has  his  ears  open  on  every  side  to  the  voice 
of  compassion.  The  general  system  under  which  he  be- 
lieves the  world  to  be  governed,  is  one  of  so  much  harsh- 
ness, that  to  make  it  tolerable  he  stands  in  much  need  of  all 
the  alleviations  which  can  be  afforded  him  by  the  balsam  of 
love,  and  his  faith  in  the  presence  of  this  all-animating  sym- 
pathy. 

But  the  most  remarkable  point  of  resemblance  between 
the  Indian  and  the  Christian  doctrines,  lies  in  the  absolute 
identity  of  conception  with  which  both  describe  the  process 
of  regeneration.  In  the  Indian  creed,  exactly  as  in  our  own, 
so  soon  as  the  soul  becomes  touched  with  the  love  of  divine 
things,  it  is  supposed  to  drop  at  once  its  life  contaminated  by 
sin,  and,  as  the  phcenix  rises  from  its  ashes,  to  spring  at  once 
into  the  possession  of  a  new  and  purified  existence.  So  uni- 
versal is  the  prevalence  of  this  idea  among  the  Indians,  that 
the  soul  so  purified  is  said  by  the  Brahmins  (with  the  same 
words  and  the  same  meaning  familiar  to  ourselves)  to  be 
Neic-horn.  But  even  here  there  is  ample  room  to  perceive 
the  superiority  of  our  Christian  religion.  That  religion  has, 
indeed,  no  more  than  either  reason  or  nature,  opposed  at  any 
time  the  hereditary  advantages  of  earthly  possessions ;  the 
idea  of  any  such  social  equality  has  been  confined  to  a  few 
doting  and  ignorant  enthusiasts.     But,  on  the  other  hand, 


INFERIORITY  OF  THE  HINDOO  SYSTEM.  133 

Christianity  acknowledges,  distinctly  and  broadly,  the  prin- 
ciple, that  all  men  are  equal  before  God :  a  principle  much 
better  calculated  than  the  other  to  nourish  within  us  the 
noble  spirit  of  freedom.  In  the  Christian  system,  all  hea- 
venly possessions  are  the  free  gift  of  Heaven,  and  they  are 
often  conferred  on  those  whom  we  should  be  apt  to  consider 
as  the  most  mean  and  the  most  unworthy.  In  the  religion 
of  the  Hindoos,  those  blessings  which  ought  to  form  the 
common  hope  of  all  men,  are  represented  as  the  peculiar 
privilege  of  certain  castes.  What  encouragement  for  pride 
on  the  one  hand !  what  sources  of  self-despising  thoughts 
and  voluntary  degradations  on  the  other  ! 

In  spite  of  all  these  errors,  and  all  this  palpable  inferiority 
in  the  Hindoo  system,  the  resemblance  between  it  and  the 
Christian  is  nevertheless  sufficiently  distinct  to  have  given 
rise  among  certain  critics  to  the  idea  that  the  Brahmins  have 
borrowed  many  of  their  opinions  from  our  gospels.  I  think, 
however,  that  the  prevalence  of  such  notions  in  India,  at  a 
period  much  more  early  than  this,  is  proved  beyond  a  doubt, 
by  historical  evidence.  Besides,  I  am  not  of  the  opinion 
that  we  ought  to  be  so  much  startled  by  the  discovery  of  any 
such  imperfect  anticipation  of  the  truth.  We  might,  vvith 
equal  reason,  take  it  for  granted,  whenever  we  meet  in  the 
writings  of  the  other  Asiatic  nations  any  thing  which  bears 
a  strong  resemblance  to  the  traditions  of  Moses,  or  the  alle- 
gories of  Solomon,  that  the  authors  of  these  writings  must, 
of  necessity,  have  had  in  their  hands  copies  of  our  Old  Tes- 
tament exactly  like  ourselves.  Although  the  stream  may 
be  both  distant  and  impure,  it  may  still  retain  something  of 
the  nature  of  its  original  fountain.  The  seeds  of  all  truth 
and  all  virtue  are  implanted  by  nature  in  man — the  image 
of  God.  He  has  often  indistinct  surmises  of  things  which 
are  not  till  long  afterwards  to  be  perfectly  revealed.  The 
first  fathers  of  Christianity  found  in  the  life  Socrates  and  the 
doctrines  of  Plato  so  much  that  harmonized  with  their  owii 
system,  that  they  scrupled  not  to  say  these  philosophers  were 
both,  in  some  measure,  Christians.  As  all  the  manifesta- 
tions of  nature  are  connected  with  each  other  by  the  common 
principle  of  being,  and  as  all  exercise  of  reason  must  give 
birth  to  somewhat  similar  results,  so  also,  in  a  higher  re- 
gion, all  those  truths  which  relate  to  divine  things  are  mys- 

12 


134  COMPARED  WITH  OTHER  NATIONS. 

teriously  kindred  to  each  other.  When  one  step  is  given, 
man  easily  goes  farther.  It  is  only  necessary  that  the  first 
spark  of  light  should  be  given  from  above  ;  that  man  can 
no  more  strike  out  for  himself  than  he  can  create  for  himself 
a  new  body  or  a  new  soul.  It  is  true  that  there  are  many 
thoughts,  many  trains  and  worlds  of  thought,  which  are 
originated  by  man  himself;  but  these  thoughts  are  mere 
emanations  of  selfishness,  narrow  and  unprofitable,  and  tend- 
ing to  no  issue.  We  can  no  more  say  that  truth  and  light 
are  in  these,  than  that  pure  morality  consists  in  pride  and 
vanity. 

The  great  picture  of  the  development  of  the  human  mind 
and  the  history  of  truth  and  errors,  is  becoming  more  per- 
fect in  proportion  as  we  are  becoming  acquainted  with  a 
greater  number  of  nations  possessing  systems  and  mytholo- 
gies of  their  own.  Things  which  in  the  western  world  ap- 
pear always  at  a  great  distance  from  each  other,  are  often 
found  in  the  most  intimate  union  among  the  remote  nations 
of  Asia.  While  the  Persians  bear,  in  every  thing  which 
respects  religious  belief,  a  nearer  resemblance  to  the  He- 
brews than  to  any  other  people,  the  poetical  part  of  their 
mythology  is  extremely  similar  to  the  northern  theology, 
and  their  manners  have  many  points  of  coincidence  with 
those  of  the  Germans.  Among  the  Indians,  again,  we  find 
a  mythology  resembling  partly  that  of  the  Egyptians,  partly 
that  of  the  Greeks,  and  yet  comprehending  in  it  many  ideas, 
both  moral  and  philosophical,  which,  in  spite  of  all  differ- 
ences in  detail,  are  evidently  akin  to  the  doctrines  of  our 
Christian  religion.  There  is,  indeed,  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  there  existed  a  reciprocal  communication  of  ideas  be- 
tween India  and  those  countries  which  had  the  nearest  access 
to  the  ancient  revelation.  The  Persians  had,  without  doubt, 
obtained  the  mastery  over  Northern  India  before  the  days  of 
Alexander,  or,  at  least,  they  had  from  time  to  time  overrun 
and  conquered  it.  And  Persian  ideas  and  doctrines  might 
very  easily  be  circulated  in  India ;  for  although  they  differed 
greatly  in  institutions  and  opinions,  the  two  nations  were 
originally  connected,  both  by  language  and  descent.  Even 
the  expedition  of  Alexander,  although  the  authority  it  es- 
tablished was  of  no  long  duration,  may  have  left  a  very  con- 
siderable impression  on  the  minds  of  the  Indians.     As  in  the 


ITS    SUPPOSED    ORIGIN.  135 

Grecian  opinions  and  mythology,  much  more  is  of  foreign 
origin  than  one  would  at  first  be  inclined  to  believe,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  art  vnth  which  the  Greeks  rendered  every 
thing  which  they  borrowed  from  other  nations  Greek ;  even 
so  there  may  be  much  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  Brahmins 
originally  derived  from  the  opinions  of  foreign  nations.  The 
very  uniformity  and  bigotry  of  Indian  thought,  must  have 
soon  lent  an  Indian  air  to  whatever  was  ingrafted  on  it — 
and  may  thus  have  been  productive  of  the  same  effects  as  the 
restlessness  and  variety  of  Grecian  intellect.  Although  India 
received,  perhaps,  in  the  more  early  periods,  no  return  from 
Egypt  for  the  knowledge  which  she  communicated,  the  case 
may  have  been  very  different  afterwards,  and  the  Indians 
may  have  derived  some  notions  of  the  doctrines  of  Judaism 
and  Christianity  through  their  intercourse  with  the  Egyp- 
tians. I  have,  indeed,  little  doubt  that  the  later  writers  of 
Hindostan  have  had  the  benefit  of  some  such  communica- 
tion. The  first  diffusion  of  Christianity  on  the  coast  of 
Malabar  is  supposed  to  have  taken  place  so  early  as  the  age 
of  the  apostles.  We  have,  besides,  historical  evidence  of  a 
Christian  mission  having  been  sent  from  Egypt  into  India 
about  the  end  of  the  fourth,  or  begimiing  of  the  fifth,  century. 
At  that  period  India  was  also  connected  in  the  way  of  trade 
with  Ethiopia.  While  Armenia,  Syria,  Egypt,  and  Ethiopia, 
remained  entirely  Christian,  and  either  in  subjection  to  the 
Byzantine  empire,  or  on  terms  of  friendly  alliance  with  it, 
the  intercourse  between  the  remoter  east  and  the  west,  by 
way  of  Constantinople,  must  have  been  extremely  easy.  The 
last  writer  who  describes  the  Indians  of  the  sixteenth  century 
as  an  eye-witness,  says  expressly  that  he  found  their  seas  and 
havens  filled  with  Persian  vessels.  The  power  of  the  Per- 
sians was  very  predominant  by  land  also  previous  to  the  ap- 
pearance of  Mahomet;  they  had  already  considerably  re- 
duced the  extent  of  the  eastern  empire.  In  consequence  of 
Egypt  and  Syria  being  taken  away  from  the  Byzantine  em- 
pire by  the  successors  of  Mahomet,  the  old  intercourse  be- 
tween the  east  and  the  west  was  for  a  time  interrupted ;  but 
it  was  restored  with  great  success  by  the  operations  of  the 
Crusades. 

The  epoch  in  which  the  different  opinions  of  the  Asiatics 
began  to  be  introduced  and  opposed  to  each  other  among  the 


136  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION. 

Europeans,  was  that  which  takes  in  the  period  between 
Hadrian  and  Justinian.  But  even  in  the  earhest  times  of 
Christianity  the  influence  of  these  oriental  systems  was  suf- 
ficiently apparent.  The  mystical  sects  of  the  first  century 
consisted,  in  a  great  measure,  of  persons  who  had  embraced 
different  dogmas  of  the  oriental  philosophers,  and  who  en- 
deavoured to  blend  these,  as  well  as  the  fictions  of  altogether 
inconsistent  mythologies,  with  the  doctrines  of  the  new  faith. 
Even  the  greatest  of  the  first  Christian  philosophers,  Origen, 
was  a  believer  in  the  transmigration  of  souls,  and  many  other 
oriental  opinions,  altogether  irreconcileable  with  Christianity. 
In  the  New-Platonic  philosophy,  which  undertook  the  de- 
fence of  the  old  Polytheism,  and  was  professedly  hostile  to 
Christianity,  the  Egyptian  taste  made  daily  steps  to  predo- 
minance. This  philosophy  was  a  strange,  chaotic,  and  fer- 
menting mixture  of  astrology,  metaphysics,  and  mythology. 
The  propensity  to  secret  and  magical  arts — whose  mysteries 
were  frequently  sinful  as  well  as  foolish — grew  daily  more 
and  more  into  a  passion.  Such  was  the  philosophy,  and 
such  the  opinions  which  it  Avas  the  ambition  of  the  Emperor 
Julian  to  establish  on  the  ruins  of  Christianity.  The  more 
Christianity  increased,  the  more  universal  and  comprehen- 
sive must  the  struggle  between  it  and  the  old  religion  have 
become.  The  antipathy  natural  to  two  contending  parties 
yields  an  easy  explanation  of  the  early  persecutions  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  not  possible  to  douU  that  Diocletian  had  a 
regular  plan  in  view,  and  Avas  resolved,  at  -all  hazards,  to 
extirpate  our  religion.  But  the  cause  of  truth  was  strong, 
and  its  strength  became  sufficiently  manifested  in  the  time  of 
Constantine.  The  victory  which  the  new  religion  then 
gained  was,  however,  not  so  much  due  to  the  exertions  of 
that  prince,  as  to  the  same  internal  strength  which  had  been 
the  protector  of  Christianity  during  all  the  assaults  of  Diocle- 
tian. The  establishment  of  Christianity  has,  however,  been 
numbered  among  the  merits  of  Constantine,  and  it  is  no  won- 
der that  the  fame  of  such  a  service  has  induced  posterity  to 
throw  a  merciful  veil  over  all  his  faults.  But  the  genius  of 
the  old  religion  was  not  yet  entirely  overthrown,  and  the 
contest  was  once  more  renewed,  and  that  with  redoubled 
spirit,  under  Julian.  This  was  a  prince,  whatever  his  other 
qualities  might  be,  of  very  splendid  talents;   he  attacked 


TJNDER    JULIAN.  137 

Christianity,  not  by  open  force,  like  Diocletian,  (which  was, 
indeed,  by  this  time  out  of  the  question,)  but  with  ridicule, 
and  all  manner  of  traitorous  arts  and  reproaches.  His  most 
insidious  attempt  was  to  render  Christianity  contemptible,  by 
representing  it  as  a  system  incompatible  with  all  higher  in- 
tellectual accomplishment  and  education.  The  modern 
panegyrists  of  Julian  have  many  points  of  resemblance  to 
the  subject  of  their  eulogies ;  but  if  they  would  condescend 
to  examine  a  little  more  closely  into  the  true  nature  of  that 
scientific  superstition  to  which  Julian  was  attached,  perhaps 
they  might  see  less  reason  to  identify  their  own  cause  with 
his. 

Even  ajEter  Christianity  had  outstood  this  last  regular  attack 
upon  her  existence,  she  had  still  to  contend  with  a  strong 
opposition  from  the  philosophers  down  to  the  time  of  Jus« 
tinian.  That  prince  banished  the  philosophers,  who  w^ere 
her  principal  enemies,  from  his  dominions.  They  took  re- 
fuge in  Persia,  where  they  soon  became  dispersed  and  for- 
gotten ;  and  so  terminated  the  remarkable  contest  between 
the  heathen  philosophy  and  the  Christian  religion. 

12* 


LECTURE  VI. 


INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  ON  THE  ROMAN  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE 
TRANSITION  TO  THE  NORTHERN  NATIONS GOTHIC  HEROIC  POEMS- 
ODIN,    RUNIC   WRITINGS   AND   THE    EDDA OLD   GERMAN   POETRY — THE 

NIBELUNGEN-LIED^, 


I  HAVE  now  attempted  to  give  you  a  view  of  three  pe- 
riods of  literature.  In  setting  before  you  the  two  first  of 
these, — ^the  flourishing  era  of  Greek  intellect,  from  Solon  to 
the  Ptolemies,  and  the  best  and  properly  classical  time  of 
Roman  literature  from  Cicero  to  Trajan, — I  had  an  easy 
task  to  perform.  For  by  merely  passing  in  review,  and 
pointing  out  the  characteristic  qualities  of  the  individual 
writers,  I  did  all  that  was  necessary  to  give  you  a  distinct 
idea  of  the  spirit  and  progressive  character  of  the  whole 
subject — of  the  various  and  intermingled  revolutions  of  pro- 
gress and  decline  by  which  the  literary  history  of  some 
remarkable  centuries  was  distinguished. 

The  case  was  very  different  with  regard  to  the  third  pe- 
riod— ^between  Hadrian  and  Justinian.  The  object  here 
was  not  to  describe  the  forms  of  particular  compositions, 
and  the  merits  of  individual  authors,  but  to  set  before  you  a 
view  of  progressive  cheinges  in  general  thought.  My  pur- 
pose was  to  display  the  great  struggle  between  the  world  of 
antiquity  and  the  new  Christian  faith ;  the  influence  which 
was  produced  by  the  introduction  of  a  new  religion  from 
Asia  into  Europe;  the  fermentation  which  was  produced, 
both  among  Greeks  and  Romans,  by  the  influx  of  oriental 
dogmas  and  oriental  mysticism.  My  task  was  here  a  much 
more  difficult  one.  In  order  to  describe  this  conflict  of 
Asiatic  opinions,  and  the  whole  picture  of  Asiatic  traditions, 
I  was  compelled  to  speak  of  nations  whose  literature  has 
altogether  perished,  such  as  the  Egyptians ;  of  others,  whose 
ancient  literature  is  known  to  us  only  by  the  imperfect  pro- 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  WRITERS.  139 

ductions  of  after  ages,  such  as  the  Persians :  of  the  Hebrews, 
whose  sacred  writings  contain,  indeed,  all  the  old  litera- 
ture and  poetry  of  the  nation,  but  are  viewed  by  us  in  a 
manner  little  adapted  for  exact  criticism,  impressed  as  we 
are  with  habitual  reverence  for  what  we  conceive  to  be  the 
repositories  of  divine  communication;  last  of  all,  of  the  In- 
dians, whose  literature  is  rich  and  various,  but  kno"\vn  to 
us  imperfectly,  and  from  sources  often  of  very  dubious 
authority. 

Even  in  the  greater  proportion  of  authors  (both  heathens 
and  Christians)  which  were  produced  by  Greece  and  Rome 
in  the  time  between  Hadrian  and  Justinian,  the  principal 
object  of  attention  is  not  the  form  of  composition,  but  the 
spirit,  and  import,  and  development  of  opinion.  Should  any 
one  attempt  to  depict  this  period  by  going  regularly  through 
the  catalogue  of  its  writers,  and  assigning  to  the  compo- 
sitions of  each  their  due  share  of  critical  blame  or  appro- 
bation; the  consequence  would  only  be,  that  our  ideas 
would  be  bewildered,  and  we  should  entirely  lose  sight  of 
the  main  object  of  importance.  It  is  true  that  all  manner 
of  literary  information  and  literary  facilities  were  exten- 
sively diffused  during  this  period ;  perhaps  the  spirit  of  in- 
quiry, and  the  love  of  investigation  were  never  so  common 
or  so  lively  as  at  this  very  time,  which  was,  above  all 
others,  the  most  fruitful  in  the  production  of  all  sorts  of  er- 
rors and  superstitions.  If  we  look  to  the  universal  activity 
of  intellect,  the  wide  diffusion  of  knowledge,  errors,  tra- 
ditions, and  erudition  of  all  kinds,  we  cannot  hesitate  to  con- 
sider this  age  as,  in  a  mere  literary  point  of  view,  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  and  remarkable  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  But  our  conclusion  would  be  very  different,  if  we 
should  direct  our  attention  only  to  the  character  and  original 
genius  of  its  individual  great  authors,  and  their  skill  and 
taste  in  language,  style,  and  composition.  In  poetry,  to 
which,  among  the  departments  of  literature,  the  first  place 
is  ever  due,  during  the  whole  of  this  period  nothing  really 
new  or  great  was  produced.  It  produced,  indeed,  great 
masters  of  eloquence,  for  that  was  a  talent  of  which  the 
Greeks  were  never  destitute ;  but  what  is  there  either  in  the 
form  or  art  of  their  rhetoric  that  is  either  new  or  remark- 
able 1    The  highest  praise  to  which  the  best  orators  of  this 


140  EARLY    CHRISTIAN    WRITERS. 

time  can  lay  claim  is,  that  their  style  and  language  are  still 
such  as  to  recall  to  our  recollection,  or  even  to  sustain  a 
comparison  with,  the  better  ages  of  antiquity.  The  Greek 
language  was,  indeed,  still  preserved  in  great  purity  and 
perfection.  To  some  of  the  great  Christian  orators,  such  as 
Basil  and  Chrysostom,  we  must,  however,  allow  the  farther 
praise  of  having  directed  that  rhetoric,  which  was  natural 
to  them  as  Greeks,  not  to  sophistical  topics,  which  was  the 
great  error  of  their  predecessors,  but  to  the  development  of 
the  most  sacred  truth  and  the  purest  morality.  But  in  truth, 
the  ambition  of  writing  well  was  no  characteristic  of  this 
age.  The  Christian  fathers  had  other  things  in  view  than 
to  shine  as  authors,  and  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  their 
heathen  opponents.  How  can  any  one  talk  of  Plotinus  or 
Porphyry,  or  even  of  Longinus,  as  writers,  after  hax-^ing 
read  Plato  ?  and  yet  these  are  the  very  men  whose  writings 
merit  our  chief  attention,  since  their  opinions  exerted  the 
greatest  influence,  both  on  their  cotemporaries  and  on  pos- 
terity. In  general,  individual  distinctions  were  lost  sight  of 
in  the  overpowering  bustle  and  conflict  of  the  age.  There 
are  in  the  history  of  literature,  epochs  wherein  all  the  praise, 
both  of  style  and  intellect,  belong  to  the  genius  of  individuals 
who  had  outstripped  their  generation ;  there  are  others  in 
which  individuals  go  for  nothing,  and  all  our  attention  is 
rivetted  on  the  great  motions  of  the  common  mind.  The 
historian  of  literature  must  be  impartial,  and  represent  with 
equal  fidelity  all  the  modes  of  intellectual  manifestations; 
he  must  give  due  space  both  to  the  repose  of  artificial  de- 
velopment on  the  one  hand,  and  the  creativeness  of  chaotic 
ferment  on  the  other. 

If  we  regard  only  the  intellectual  strength  which  was 
ranged  on  either  side  in  this  great  contest,  we  shall  find 
that  the  powers  of  the  two  parties,  both  in  talents  and  in 
erudition,  were  pretty  fairly  matched.  With  perhaps  some 
few  exceptions,  every  incident  of  the  conflict  was  produced 
by  the  merits  of  the  two  causes,  not  the  excellencies  or  de- 
fects of  the  individual  combatants.  Among  the  Greeks,  at 
the  beginning  of  this  period,  the  heathenish  party  had  cer- 
tainly the  advantage ;  the  Greek  literature  had  its  last  fine 
season  at  a  time  when  the  Christians  under  Antoninus 
scarcely  ventured  to  brmg  forth  a  single  writing  in  defence 


ADVANCE    OF    GRECIAN    LITERATURE.  141 

either  of  their  persecuted  faith  or  their  calumniated  lives.  Even 
among  the  Christian  party,  the  Greeks  still  maintained  their 
reputation  of  superior  intellectual  attainments  ;  the  first  phi- 
losophical and  learned  apologists,  the  first  great  orators  and 
historians  of  Christianity,  were  all  Greeks.  The  supe- 
riority both  in  talents  and  learning  began  every  day  to  be 
more  and  more  on  the  side  of  the  Christians.  But  even 
after  the  new  religion  had  acquired  a  complete  victory,  and 
become  the  established  faith  of  the  empire,  among  the 
Greeks  at  least,  the  heathen  party  were  still  distinguished 
by  the  most  commanding  talents.  Even  those  last  philoso- 
phers who  opposed  Christianity,  and  attempted  to  restore 
heathenism,  after  it  had  fairly  been  abolished,  were  men  who 
are,  when  considered  in  relation  to  the  time  which  produced 
them,  worthy  of  very  high  admiration,  whether  we  regard 
the  profoundness  of  their  views,  the  extent  of  their  learning, 
or  even  the  elegance  of  their  compositions. 

In  the  west  the  case  was  very  different.  There  we  have 
only  a  very  few  heathen  writers,  and  these  ones  of  no 
great  importance,  opposed  to  a  whole  body  of  Christian  lite- 
rature in  Latin.  It  is  true  that  this  western  literature  is  not 
worthy  of  being  compared,  either  in  respect  of  talents  or 
erudition,  with  the  Christian  literature  of  the  Greeks.  The 
Romans  had  indeed  at  no  time  any  great  talents  for  phi- 
losophy and  metaphysics ;  even  their  language  was  against 
them,  and  its  defects  are  no  less  visible  in  Augustine  than 
in  Cicero.  It  was  not  till  long  after  the  Latin  had  become 
a  dead  language,  that  it  was  moulded  by  the  violence  of 
foreigners  into  a  state  capable  of  expressing  in  some  degree 
(however  imperfectly)  the  subtleties  of  those  born  dialecti- 
cians and  metaphysicians,  the  Greeks.  The  greatest  and  most 
original  work  which  the  later  Latin  literature  produced  is 
unquestionably  that  in  which  St.  Augustine  has  attempted  to 
give  a  Christian  interpretation  to  the  greatest  work  of  an- 
cient philosophy — the  Republic  of  Plato,  and  the  ideal  sys- 
tem of  man  and  society  which  it  contains.  But  even  this 
work,  although  it  professes  to  be  chiefly  occupied  with  mat- 
ters of  the  most  abstract  nature,  such  as  the  destiny  of  man 
and  the  ideas  of  social  arrangement,  is  in  truth  not  so  much 
a  metaphysical  as  a  moral  work.  It  is,  however,  a  moral 
work  in  the  most  extensive  sense  of  that  word,  for  it  contains 


142        SOURCES  OF  MODERN  LITERATURE 

many  admirable  criticisms  on  the  work  of  Plato,  a  theory 
of  human  life,  and  an  abstract  of  the  philosophy  of  history. 
Even  in  the  Christian  age,  the  national  distinctions  of  Greeks 
and  Romans  were  still  kept  alive ;  and  if  the  former  were 
remarkable  for  skill  and  subtilty,  the  latter  were  no  less  so 
for  practical  intellect  and  soundness  of  understanding.  These 
qualities  of  the  Roman  mind,  embodied  as  they  were  in  that 
admirable  system  of  laws  which  was  preserved  all  over  the 
Roman  west,  among  the  learned  and  the  clergy,  are  entitled 
more  than  any  others  to  our  gratitude.  It  is  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Roman  jurisprudence,  united  with  the  spirit  of 
freedom  and  natural  feeling  introduced  by  those  German 
tribes  which  conquered  and  restored  the  Roman  empire,  that 
we  must  ascribe  the  successful  development  and  dignified 
attitude  of  modern  intellect. 

Christianity  (as  given  to  the  Teutonic  nations  by  the  Ro- 
mans) on  the  one  hand,  and  the  free  spirit  of  the  north  on 
the  other,  are  the  two  elements  from  which  the  new  world 
proceeded,  and  the  literature  of  the  middle  ages  remained, 
accordingly,  at  all  times,  a  double  literature.  One  litera- 
ture, Christian  and  Latin,  was  common  to  the  whole  of 
Europe,  and  had  for  its  sole  object  the  preservation  and  ex- 
tension of  knowledge ;  but  there  was  another  and  a  more 
peculiar  literature  for  each  particular  nation  in  its  vernacu- 
lar tongue.  The  first  great  patrons  of  modern  literature — 
Theodorick  the  Goth,  Charlemagne,  and  Alfred — had  ac- 
cordingly in  all  their  labours  a  twofold  object ;  the  one,  to 
preserve  undiminished,  and  to  render  more  generally  useful, 
that  inheritance  of  knowledge  which  had  been  transmitted 
down  in  the  Latin  language ;  the  other,  to  improve  the  ver- 
nacular tongue,  and  thereby  the  national  spirit — ^to  preserve 
the  poetical  monuments — ^but  above  all,  to  give  a  regular 
form  to  the  dialects  of  the  north,  and  render  them  capable 
of  being  used  in  subjects  of  science.  The  poetical,  creative, 
and  national  part  of  the  literature  of  the  middle  age,  is  in- 
deed for  us  both  the  most  useful  and  the  most  pleasing;  but 
the  Latin  part  must  by  no  means  be  passed  over  in  silence, 
for  it  is  the  only  bond  by  which  modern  Europe  is  connect- 
ed with  the  whole  of  classical  as  well  as  Christian  antiquity. 

The  last  incidents  in  the  history  of  the  yet  living  Latin 
language,  which  had  so  great  an  influence  on  the  develop- 


INFLUENCE  OF  ROMAN  DIALECTS.  143 

medit  and  peculiar  character  of  the  Romanic  dialects,  its 
offspring,  and  in  general  on  the  poetical  spirit  of  the  middle 
ages,  were  the  following: — With  the  translation  of  the  Bi- 
ble into  the  RomEin  language,  there  commenced  an  altogether 
new  period — a  late,  and  in  many  respects  a  rich,  after-har- 
vest of  Latin  literature.  From  the  close  of  the  old  classical 
period  under  Trajan,  till  the  age  of  Christian  writers  in  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  we  find  an  almost  total  pause ; 
scarcely  here  and  there  a  single  work  in  the  Roman  lan- 
guage, and  even  these  ones  of  very  little  importance.  That 
better  and  more  important  works  of  that  period  have  pe- 
rished we  have  no  reason  to  suspect.  The  Greeks  had  at 
this  time  a  visible  superiority.  If,  in  the  centuries  which  I 
have  mentioned,  there  arose,  not  only  among  the  Christian 
party,  but  also  among  their  opponents,  several  better  writers 
both  in  poetry  and  in  history,  perhaps  we  must  ascribe  the 
honour  of  these  to  the  great  stirring  of  intellect  which  then 
took  place,  and  the  revolution  introduced  into  both  language 
and  literature  by  the  new  religion,  and  the  zealous  warmth 
of  its  defenders.  Thus  once  more  did  the  Roman  intellect 
owe  a  period  of  intellectual  and  literary  exertion,  not  to  its 
own  unassisted  efforts,  but  the  influence  of  causes  altosrether 
foreign  and  external.  The  imitation  of  oriental  models  be- 
came now  the  moving  principle  of  Roman  writers,  as  the 
imitation  of  Greek  models  had  been  the  moving  principle 
of  their  predecessors.  In  one  point  of  view  perhaps  this 
was  by  no  means  an  unfortunate  change ;  at  all  events  the 
copying  of  Greek  poetry  and  eloquence  was,  in  the  classical 
age  itself,  a  work  of  labour  and  imperfection,  and  could 
not  have  been  restored  with  any  prospect  of  success.  That 
elegant  and  periodic  mode  of  composing  prose,  which  seems 
to  have  been  quite  natural  to  the  Greeks,  remained  at  all 
times  foreign  to  the  structure  of  the  Roman  language.  A 
few,  indeed,  of  the  most  eminent  Roman  authors  mastered 
this  difficulty,  and  attained  to  a  noble  and  simple  mode  of 
composition ;  but  all  the  rest,  even  those  who  are  entitled  to 
be  called  excellent  writers,  struggled  unsuccessfully  with 
the  foreign  form,  and,  vainly  attempting  a  too  close  imita- 
tion of  the  Greeks,  lost  and  bewildered  themselves  in  an  in- 
extricable labyrinth  of  over-loaded  periods.  The  Roman 
poets,  in  like  manner,  when  they  venture  to  assume  the 


»  ... 


144        THE  GREEK  AND  ROMAN  POETRY. 

rich  and  ornamental  clothing  of  the  Grecian  muse,  can  very 
seldom  get  rid  of  an  air  of  pedantic  constraint  and  obscurity. 
Even  the  Greek  versification  which  they  adopted  (with  the 
exception  of  the  hexameter  alone,  and  perhaps  the  elegiac 
measure)  never  became  thoroughly  familiar  to  Italian  ears. 
The  elaborate  system  of  quantities  seems  to  have  been  quite 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  common  people,  and  this  may  per- 
haps be  one  reason  why  Horace,  a  writer  of  whom  the  mo- 
derns are  so  fond,  was  far  from  being  equally  felt  and  ad- 
mired by  his  countrymen,  even  of  the  times  immediately 
succeeding  his  own.  A  great  part  of  his  harmony  was  al- 
together unintelligible  to  the  Roman  people. 

The  Roman  language,  although  in  the  end  it  became  ex- 
tremely polished,  and  attained,  in  subjects  connected  with 
law,  with  warlike  affairs,  and  with  the  useful  arts,  a  rich- 
ness, and  at  the  same  time  a  precision,  to  which  no  other 
can  lay  claim,  had  nevertheless  at  all  times  two  great  wants 
— the  want  of  ease  in  prose,  and  the  want  of  boldness  in  po- 
etry, la  both  of  these  respects  it  might  have  received  great 
improvement,  and  probably,  but  for  some  unfortunate  obsta- 
cles, it  would  have  done  so,  from  the  revolution  Avhich  was 
now  taking  place.  Any  great  improvement  was  indeed  im- 
possible without  the  operation  of  some  such  violent  cause,  for 
such  a  cause  alone  could  bring  about  a  complete  desertion  of 
the  old  manner  of  writing ;  and  so  long  as  that  was  adhered 
to,  to  get  rid  of  the  old  defects  was  evidently  quite  impossi- 
ble. The  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  was  above 
al]  things  calculated  to  answer  these  purposes,  for  in  them 
the  greatest  sublimity  of  poetical  thought  is  ever  united  with 
the  most  unaffected  simplicity  of  expression.  To  shew  what 
might  have  been  produced  by  the  study  of  those  matchless 
writings,  I  shall  only  direct  your  attention  for  a  single  mo- 
ment to  the  common  version  of  the  Psalms,*  which  is,  in 
fact,  part  of  the  first  translation,  commonly  called  the  Italick. 
I  appeal  to  the  feelings  of  every  man  who  can  feel  and  appre- 
ciate the  high  dignity  and  noble  strength  of  the  Roman  lan- 
guage, whether  these  do  not  appear  to  be  completely  revived 
in  this  incomparable  version.  I  am  almost  tempted  to  doubt 
whether  the  whole  circle  of  Roman  literature  can  shew  a 

*  In  the  Vulgate. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  FATHERS.  145 

single  imitation  of  Greek  poetry  so  eminently  happy  as  this 
translation  of  the  sacred  songs  of  the  Hebrews ;  wherein  the 
utmost  elevation  of  sentiment  is  throughout  accompanied  with 
the  most  chastened  simplicity  of  style.  Even  in  regard  to 
musical  sound,  the  superiority  of  the  Roman  language  is 
here  so  conspicuous,  that  in  our  own  days  the  great  com- 
posers of  the  higher  music  still  give  the  preference  to  the 
old  language,  over  its  harmonious  daughter  the  Italian.  The 
true  reason  why  the  Roman  language  derived  no  lasting  im- 
provement from  any  of  these  things,  was  this, — that  even 
before  the  conquests  of  the  German  tribes,  it  had  begun  to 
be  radically  corrupted  by  the  influence  of  the  provincials. 
In  proportion  to  the  decline  of  her  political  power,  Rome, 
already  the  centre  of  all  ecclesiastical  influence,  began  to 
make  every  day  more  and  more  rapid  approaches  towards  a 
complete  supremacy  in  all  matters  of  intellect  and  taste.  But 
the  eflect  of  this  upon  her  owm  literature  was  far  from  being 
good.  Even  so  early  as  the  days  of  the  first  Cassars,  it  was 
the  opinion  of  many,  that  there  were  some  defects  in  the 
Latinity  of  those  Roman  writers  who  were  natives  of  Spain 
— that  they  wrote  with  the  air  of  men  speaking  a  foreign 
language ;  and,  indeed,  many  modern  critics  have  thought 
they  could  trace  no  inconsiderable  resemblance  between  the 
antitheses  of  Seneca  and  the  bombast  of  Lucan,  and  some 
prevailing  errors  in  taste  among  the  modern  Spanish  writers. 
But  how  much  more  common  must  these  provincialisms 
have  become  in  the  age  of  which  we  are  now  treating ;  an 
age  wherein  the  greater  part  of  the  Latin  writers,  and,  in- 
deed, almost  all  the  first  Latin  fathers,  were  natives  either  of 
Africa  or  of  Gaul.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted,  that  in  the 
many  far  dispersed  provinces  of  the  empire,  several  distinst  t 
Roman  dialects  were  long  before  this  time  formed.  Even 
in  Italy  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  language  of 
the  common  people  differed  materially  from  that  of  which 
the  Roman  writers  made  use,  and  which  was  spoken  in  the 
metropolis.  It  is  to  this  Romanic  dialect  of  the  common 
people — the  Lingua  Rustica,  as  it  was  called — that  the 
modern  Italian  grammarians  are  fond  of  ascribing  the  origin 
of  their  own  language,  rather  than  to  the  change  wrought 
on  the  proper  Latin  tongue  by  the  invasion  of  the  northern 
tribes.     In  the  meantime,  as  Rome  had  been  originally  not 

13 


^ 


146  THEODORIC  THE  GOTH. 

only  the  fountain,  but  perhaps  the  only  seat  of  pure  speak- 
ing, so  the  language  remained  much  longer  pure  in  her  than 
in  any  other  part  of  the  empire.  The  most  eloquent  and 
powerful  writer  among  the  Latin  fathers — St.  Jerome — was 
not,  indeed,  a  native  of  Rome,  but  he  had  at  least  received 
all  his  education  there.  And  however  inferior  the  language 
of  the  fifth  century  must  of  necessity  be  to  that  of  Cicero,  yet 
in  Jerome  we  see  much  both  of  the  true  strength  of  old  La- 
tinity,  and  the  unequivocal  elegance  of  classical  cultivation. 
The  change  upon  the  Latin  language  must  have  been  great 
mdeed,  when,  in  consequence  of  the  prodigious  influx  of 
Goths  into  Italy,  and  of  many  of  these  settling  in  Rome  it- 
self, the  language  began  to  be  spoken  and  written  by  a  great 
population  to  which  it  was  altogether  foreign.  Although 
no  absolute  mixture  of  the  languages  as  yet  took  place,  yet 
it  is  certain  that  the  Latin  underwent  at  least  such  an  alter- 
ation as  rendered  it  a  matter  of  labour  and  exertion  for  the 
Romans  themselves  to  preserve  m  their  speech  any  share  of 
that  purity  which  was  formerly  natural  to  them. 

This,  indeed,  begins  to  form  a  characteristic  feature  in  all 
the  Roman  writers  of  the  age  of  the  Gothic  king  Theodo- 
rick.  With  him  antiquity  ends,  and  all  the  writers  after  his 
time  may  be  said  to  belong  to  the  middle  age. 

However  favourable  its  consequences  may  have  after- 
wards been,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  first  introduction  of 
Christianity  must,  like  every  other  great  revolution,  have 
produced  a  temporary  interruption  in  all  art  and  all  litera- 
ture. Perhaps  of  all  the  fine  arts,  that  which  suffered  the 
least  was  architecture,  for  the  new  religion  not  only  adopted 
the  finest  old^buildings  for  its  own  purposes,  but  suggested 
the  idea  of  new  buildings  which  could  have  had  no  existence 
under  the  former  system,  or  among  any  people  ignorant  of 
the  peculiar  character  and  sublimity  of  the  Christian  wor- 
ship. In  the  same  manner  that  the  Greeks  had  of  old 
formed  a  truly  Grecian  architecture  out  of  the  elements  fur- 
nished to  them  by  the  Egyptians  and  other  nations,  the 
Christians  now  made  use  of  the  beautiful  forms  of  the  Gre- 
cian architecture,  and  formed  out  of  them  a  new  style,  which 
was  purely  and  originally  a  Christian  architecture.  How 
soon  this  took  place  may  be  learned  from  the  admirable 
church  of  St.  Sophia  in  Constantinople,  which  was  built  in 


DECLINE  OF  THE  ARTS.  147 

the  time  of  Justinian  by  Anthemius,  himself  not  only  a  great 
practical  architect,  but  also  a  great  and  scientific  writer  upon 
the  theory  of  his  art.  The  absurdity  of  calling  all  the  Teu- 
tonic architecture  of  the  middle  ages  by  the  name  Gothic  has 
been  often  remarked ;  but  there  is  no  doubt,  that  during  the 
period  of  their  empire  in  Italy,  the  Goths  erected  many 
buildings,  which  still  survive  as  specimens  of  their  architec- 
tural skill.  The  fate  of  the  an'^ient  mu^  was  in  like  man-  v 
ner  fortunate ;  its  most  simple  and  noble  species  were  at  once 
adopted  into  the  service  of  the  Christian  church,  and  we  still 
listen  to  many  ancient  Roman  airs,  adapted  to  the  service  of 
hymns  and  psalms,  and  invested  with  a  more  solemn  and 
etherial  harmony  by  the  majestic  accompaniments  of  the  or- 
gan. The  interruption  in  sculpture  was  much  greater.  The 
images  of  the  ancient  gods,~so  long  as  they  were  considered 
as  such,  and  not  viewed  merely  as  specimens  of  art,  were 
objects  of  unmingled  aversion  to  the  early  Christians.  The 
representations  of  our  Saviour  and  the  Virgin,  which  soon 
became  conmion  among  them,  were  not  intended  to  serve 
any  other  purpose  than  the  excitement  of  pious  reflections. 
They  afforded  very  little  scope  either  for  sculpture  or  paint- 
ing when  treated  in  this  way,  and  to  make  use  of  them  as 
vehicles  for  the  expression  of  beauty,  whether  in  form  or 
sentiment,  was  the  thought  of  a  period  as  yet  far  distant.  But 
yet  greater  than  this,  and,  mdeed,  far  greater  than  any  other, 
must  have  been  the  interruption  which  took  place  in  poetry. 
Some  few,  indeed,  still  persisted  in  making  a  poetical  use  of 
the  old  Pagan  mythology ;  but  as  all  the  particulars  of  that 
system  had  already  been  completely  exhausted,  and  the  be- 
lief itself  was  utterly  gone,  nothing  more  was  attainable  than 
a  faint  and  elaborate  imitation  of  the  matchless  works  of  the 
true  Pagans.  The  attempt  to  form  a  new  and  properly 
Christian  poetry  was,  indeed,  extremely  successful  in  the 
department  of  hymns  and  songs,  for  in  these  the  warm  ex- 
pression of  feeling  was  alone  sufficient  to  constitute  excel- 
lence ;  and  besides,  the  Christian  writers  had  this  advan- 
tage, that  they  were  almost  compelled  to  follow  the  example 
of  the  very  best  models  they  could  have  had, — the  Psalms 
of  the  Hebrews.  But  the  more  ambitious  attempts  to  de- 
scribe in  poetry  the  whole  system  of  Christianity,  were  in 
general,  as  has  very  frequently  been  the  case  in  modern 


148         ORIGIN  OF  CHIVALROUS  POETRY. 

times,  altogether  unsuccessful ;  the  form  of  composition  bor- 
rowed from  the  ancient  poets  was  little  adapted  for  such  sub- 
jects, and  the  result  was  only  a  collection  of  uninteresting- 
centos,  possessing,  indeed,  the  attributes  of  metrical  arrange- 
ment and  elevated  language,  but  utterly  destitute  of  all  that  life 
and  spirit  in  which  the  essence  of  poetry  consists.  For  these 
Europe  had  to  look  to  her  other  fountain  of  inspiration,  the 
north. 

In  the  very  earliest  Roman  accounts  of  the  German  na- 
tions we  find  many  notices  of  their  extraordinary  love  for 
poetry.  The  songs  in  which  the  actions  of  Hermann*  were 
celebrated  have  perished ;  so  also  have  those  inspiring  strains 
with  which  the  prophetess  Veleda  was  wont  to  animate  the 
courage  of  the  Teutonic  Batavi,  when  they,  after  long  fol- 
lowing the  Roman  banners  against  their  brethren  of  Ger- 
many, undertook  at  last  to  maintain  a  war  in  defence  of  their 
own  freedom ;  and  found  too  late,  by  sad  experience,  that  the 
time  for  resistance  had  gone  by.  The  mythological  poems 
of  these  northern  nations  must  naturally  have  been  forgotten 
after  the  adoption  of  a  new  religion.  But  the  most  essen- 
tial part,  the  spirit  and  strength  of  their  poetry,  was  kept 
alive  in  the  historical  heroic  poems.  These,  in  process  of 
time,  came  to  be  composed  with  greater  elegance  of  lan- 
guage and  versification,  to  be  softened  by  the  refinement  of 
manners,  and  to  be  beautified  and  ennobled  by  the  spirit  of 
love  and  thoughtfulness.  And  such  was  the  origin  of  that 
chivalrous  poetry  which  is  (in  this  shape  at  least)  altogether 
peculiar  to  Christian  Europe,  and  has  produced  effects  so 
powerful  on  the  national  spirit  of  its  noblest  inhabitants. 

Of  the  Teutonic  nations  converted  to  Christianity  the 
Goths  were  the  first  who  possessed  historical  heroic  poems 
of  the  kind  to  which  I  have  alluded.  Gothic  heroic  poems 
were  already  sung  in  the  time  of  Attila,  and  they  continued 
to  form  the  amusement  of  the  court  of  King  Theodorick. 
Even  the  Latin  writers  of  that  age  make  mention  of  them, 
and  some  of  them  have  transmitted  to  us  as  true  history  in 
prose,  particulars  relating  to  the  antiquities  of  the  northern 
tribes,  which  were  in  fact  only  the  poetical  ornaments  of 
these  heroic  legends.     The  fame  of  the  royal  line  of  the 

*  Arminias. 


OF  GOTHIC  LITERATURE.  149 

Amali,  and  all  the  heroes  of  that  race,  seems  to  have  been 
the  favourite  subject  of  these  poems.  In  the  sequel  both 
Attila  and  Theodorick,  and  after  them  Charlemagne  him- 
self, were  honoured  with  a  similar  celebration. 

Of  Gothic  literature  we  still  possess  one  monument,  the 
Bible  of  Ulphilas ;  and  it  is  evident  from  it  that  the  Gothic 
language  had  at  least  made  very  close  approximations  to  a 
regular  construction.  This  version  of  the  sacred  writings 
was  originally  executed  for  the  use  of  those  Gothic  tribes 
which  occupied  the  countries  on  the  Danube ;  but  we  have 
the  clearest  evidence  that  the  very  ^ame  dialect  was  spoken 
by  the  Goths  in  Italy.  It  is  expressly  stated  that  Theo- 
dorick favoured  impartially  the  progress  of  both  literatures, 
the  Latin  and  the  Gothic.  We  know,  indeed,  that  he  en- 
couraged the  translating  of  Latin  books  into  Gothic,  exactly 
as  the  great  Alfred,  somewhat  later,  did  that  of  the  same 
books  into  Anglo-Saxon.  From  the  manner  in  which  the 
Latin  historian  Jornandes  acknowledges  his  obligations  to 
the  heroic  poems  of  the  Goths,  there  is  great  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  he,  or  rather  the  authors  whom  he  transcribed, 
had  not  barely  heard  these  poems  recited,  but  seen  them 
committed  to  writing  at  the  court  of  Theodorick.  And  this 
is  rendered  the  more  probable  by  the  circumstance  of  these 
poems  having  been,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  principally  oc- 
cupied with  the  achievements  of  the  royal  race  of  the  Amali. 
A  prince  like  Theodorick  would  neglect  no  means  to  secure 
the  preservation  of  such  interesting  records.  But  with  the 
disappearance  of  the  Gothic  nation,  its  language  also,  and 
all  the  monuments  of  its  greatness,  passed  away.  These 
were,  indeed,  preserved  in  some  measure  among  the  Spaniards 
after  they  had  elsewhere  been  forgotten,  for  it  was  the  am- 
bition of  the  Spanish  monarchs  to  trace  their  lineage  to  the 
old  Gothic  kings.  But  in  Italy,  on  the  contrary,  every 
Gothic  monument  seems  to  have  been  studiously  destroyed ; 
for  there  the  vanity  of  the  great  families  took  a  different  turn, 
and  they  were  willing  to  sacrifice  all  the  proofs  of  a  true 
Gothic  or  Longobardic  pedigree,  for  the  sake  of  fabricating 
a  descent  from  some  of  the  patricians  of  ancient  Rome. 

If  we  reflect  on  the  nature  of  the  prevalent  tastes  of  that 
age,  we  shall,  I  think,  have  no  difficulty  in  concluding  that 
those   songs   of  the  German   bards,  which  Charlemagne 

13* 


150  POETRY  OF  THE  GOTHS. 

caused  to  be  collected  and  committed  to  writing,  could 
scarcely  have  been  any  thing  else  than  similar  heroic  poems 
relating  to  the  first  Christian  period,  and  the  great  expedi- 
tions of  the  northern  tribes.  He  was  to  the  German  bards 
what  Solon  was  to  Homer  or  the  Homeridas.  Now  we 
have  still  extant  heroic  poems  in  the  German  language, 
wherein  Attila,  Odoacer,  Theodorick,  and  the  race  of  the 
Amali,  are  celebrated,  in  conjunction  with  many  heroes, 
both  Frankish  and  Burgundian,  all  mingled  together  with- 
out scruple  by  the  bold  anachronisms  of  a  most  uncritical 
age.  The  present  shape  in  which  these  poems  appear  bears, 
indeed,  the  clearest  marks  of  an  age  long  posterior  to  that 
of  Charlemagne.  But  perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say, 
that  we  have  still  in  our  possession,  if  not  the  language  or 
form,  at  least  the  substance  of  may  of  those  ancient  poems 
which  were  collected  by  the  orders  of  that  prince ;  I  refer 
to  the  Nibelungen-lied*  and  the  collection  which  goes  by 
the  name  of  the  Heldenhuch.-\ 

The  opinion  that  the  poems  collected  together  by  Char- 
lemagne referred  to  Hermann  or  Odin,  or  in  general  to  the 
Pagan  antiquities  and  mythology  of  the  old  Germans,  can, 
I  apprehend,  be  entertained  only  by  those  who  have  not 
looked  with  sufficient  accuracy  into  the  spirit  of  that  age. 
I  shall  bring  forward  a  single  historical  evidence,  which 
may,  I  think,  greatly  contribute  to  put  an  end  to  the  dispute. 
This  is  the  still  extant  formula  of  that  oath  by  which  the 
Saxons  renounced  heathenism  on  their  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity. Its  words  are  as  follows : — "  I  renounce  all  the 
works  and  words  of  the  Devil,  Thunaer,  (that  is,  the  God 
of  thunder  or  Thor,)  and  Wodan,  and  Saxon  Odin,  and  all 
the  unholy  that  are  their  kindred."  This  formula  is  in- 
deed, commonly  ascribed  to  the  eighth  century,  rather  be- 
fore the  time  of  Charlemagne ;  but  that  is  of  no  importance, 
It  is  quite  sufficient  evidence  of  the  spirit  of  those  days. 
Odin  was  still  worshipped  in  Saxony  in  the  age  of  Charle- 
magne, and  sacrifices  were  offered  to  him  on  the  Hartz  that 
he  might  assist  the  Saxon  armies  in  their  wars  with  Char- 
lemagne himself.  How,  then,  can  we  believe  that,  in  such 
a  state  of  things,  Charlemagne  would  make  collections  of 

*  Lay  of  the  Nibelungen.  t  Book  of  Heroes. 


ODEN,  A  HISTORICAL  PERSONAGE.  151 

heathenish  poetry  in  praise  of  Hermann  or  Odin  ?  For  the 
same  oath  another  historical  truth  of  great  importance  may 
also  be  gathered,  and  that  is, — that  Odin  was  a  person  alto- 
gether distinct  from  Wodan,  having  Saxony  expressly  men- 
tioned as  his  native  land.  Even  the  legends  and  histories 
of  Scandinavia,  although  they  might  very  easily  have  appro- 
priated Odin  entirely  to  themselves,  are  yet  uniform  and 
consistent  in  relating  that  he  was  at  first  king  in  Saxony, 
and  came  from  thence  to  Sweden,  where  he  built  Sigtuna 
and  established  his  great  empire.  The  testimony  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons  is  strongly  in  favour  of  the  same  account, 
and  their  testimony  is  of  very  considerable  weight,  for  their 
kings  (and  among  the  rest  Alfred)  traced  their  genealogy 
in  the  right  line  to  Odin.  This  Anglo-Saxon  genealogy 
is  supported  by  so  many  historical  proofs,  and  the  effect  of 
the  coinciding  testimonies  of  these  two  distant  nations  is  on 
my  mind  so  strong,  that  I  have  little  hesitation  in  adopting 
the  opinion  of  those  who  consider  Odin  as  a  historical  per- 
sonage. I  agree  with  them  in  thinking  it  extremely  proba- 
ble that  he  lived  about  the  third  century  of  our  era — a  time 
in  which  the  Romans,  too  weak  to  make  attacks,  and  yet 
too  formidable  to  be  invaded,  had  perhaps  fewer  means  of 
knowing  what  passed  in  the  north  of  Germany  than  at  any 
other  period,  either  before  or  afterwards.  It  is,  I  think,  in 
these  facts  that  we  must  seek  for  the  reason,  why  the  name 
of  Odin,  so  pre-eminently  illustrious  among  the  Saxons  and 
the  Scandinavians,  remained  comparatively  unknown,  not 
only  to  the  Romans,  but  to  all  the  nations  of  the  west.  I 
imagine  that  we  must  consider  Odin  as  belonging  to  the 
same  class  with  many  deities  of  the  classical  mythology. 
He  was,  I  doubt  not,  a  prince,  a  conqueror,  a  hero,  and  at 
the  same  time  a  poet ;  he  was  the  author  of  prophetic  songs, 
by  means  of  which  he,  in  conjunction  with  priests,  seers,  and 
other  poets,  his  coadjutors,  introduced  great  changes  into 
the  theology  of  his  countrymen ;  if  he  did  not  create  a  new 
system,  he  at  least  formed  a  new  epoch  in  the  old ;  and,  as 
he  had  made  pretensions  during  his  life  to  supernatural 
powers  and  attainments,  it  was  quite  in  the  common  course 
of  things  that  he  should  be  deified  after  his  death.  That 
Odin  had  originally  come  into  Saxony  out  of  Asia,  is  a 
Scandinavian  legend,  or  rather  fancy,  altogether  irreconcile- 


152  .         THE  POETICAL  ODEN. 

able  with  this  account  of  the  historical  Odin.  The  Scandi- 
navian collectors  themselves  were  satisfied  that  they  could 
not  possibly  reconcile  their  legend  with  historical  truth,  and 
they  accordingly  had  recourse  to  the  story  of  another  Odin, 
although  they,  indeed,  very  often  confounded  the  two  to- 
gether. If  I  am  not  deceived,  however,  I  think  we  may 
find  some  traces  of  this  elder  Odin  in  an  ancient  writer  who 
is  in  all  instances  worthy  of  the  greatest  attention.  Tacitus 
mentions,  in  the  beginning  of  his  treatise  on  the  manners  of 
the  Germans,  the  existence  of  a  legend — according  to  which 
Ulysses  came  in  the  course  of  his  wanderings  into  Germa- 
ny, and  there  founded  the  city  of  Asciburgum,  Now,  the 
ancients  were  accustomed  to  consider  legends  such  as  this 
in  a  point  of  view  of  which  we  have  no  notion.  They  con- 
siidered  nothing  in  such  traditions  but  the  universal  idea  of 
a  deity  or  a  hero.  They  called  the  god  of  war  of  every  na- 
tion by  the  name  of  Mars,  and  every  deity  presiding  over 
science  or  art  by  that  of  Mercury,  and  if  they  did  not  alto- 
gether overlook  local  differences,  they  at  least  attached  to 
them  very  little  importance.  Ulysses  was  the  common  idea 
of  a  wandering  hero,  and  to  him  and  to  his  son,  even  in  the 
remotest  regions  of  the  west,  cities,  and  colonies,  and  all 
manner  of  adventures  were  ascribed.  Wherever  they  met 
with  any  legend  concerning  a  wandering  hero,  whether  of 
the  western  or  of  the  northern  nations,  their  Hercules  or 
Ulysses  was  always  at  hand,  and  in  the  history  of  one  or 
other  of  them  the  foreign  tradition  was  forthwith  &,<i'commo- 
dated  with  a  niche.  The  recollection  of  their  origin,  and 
first  egress  from  Asia,  had  not  entirely  perished  among  the 
tribes  of  the  north.  Some  legend  of  this  kind,  of  a  hero 
wandering  out  of  distant  lands  into  Germany  must  have 
been  repeated  to  Tacitus ;  and  if  the  name  was  that  of  the 
elder  Odin,  it  could  scarcely  fail  to  recall  to  the  ears  of  the 
Roman  that  of  the  Greek  Odysseus^  and  so  to  impress  on 
his  mind  a  yet  stronger  belief  in  the  coincidence  which  he 
had  remarked. 

These  historical  songs,  and  heroic  poems,  were  not,  cer- 
tainly, in  the  older  times  (unless  by  the  positive  command 
of  some  prince)  ever  committed  to  writing  ;  that  was  totally 
contrary,  both  to  the  spirit  of  such  compositions,  and  the 
customs  of  those  who  recited  them.     I  suppose  they  were 


THE  RUNIC  ALPHABET.  153 

Still  left  entirely  to  oral  tradition,  even  after  the  Germans 
had  been  long-  connected  with  the  Romans,  and  lived  in  so- 
ciety with  them  in  many  different  countries,  and  been  put 
in  complete  possession,  both  of  alphabets  and  all  the  mate- 
rials of  waiting-.     This,  however,  was  probably  by  no  means 
the  case  in  respect  of  those  prophetic  songs  of  which  the 
theology  of  Odin  had  such  need, — and  such  abundance.     In 
these  I  have  little  doubt  that  letters  were  employed.     In  an- 
other work  I  have  already  taken  occasion  to  express  my 
opinions  that  the  German  nation  were  not  altogether  unac- 
quainted with  the  use  of  letters,  even  in  times  preceding  their 
knowledge  of  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  alphabets.    The  Ru- 
nic alphabet,  at  least  as  we  now  have  it,  is  indeed  of  a  much 
more  recent  date ;  several  of  its  letters  are  exactly  copied 
from  the  Roman,  but  then  others  of  them  were  entirely  dif- 
ferent, and  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  any  corruption  of 
formation.     The  peculiar  arrangement  of  the  letters,  and 
even  the  defectiveness  of  this  alphabet,  (for  originally  it  con- 
tained only  sixteen  letters,)  seem  to  me  sufficient  proofs  that 
it  was  an  original  alphabet,  not  one  borrowed  from  the  Ro- 
mans.    Even  in  the  infinitely  more  perfect  alphabets  after- 
terwards  used  by  the  Goths  and  the  Anglo-Saxons,  although 
these  are  in  general  evidently  borrowed  from  the  Greeks  or 
Romans,  there  still  are  to  be  found  traces  of  the  old  Runic 
alphabet.     For  that  this  was  an  alphabet  common  to  many 
at  least  of  the  German  nations,  is  evident  from  the  abun- 
dance of  Runic  inscriptions  which  have  been  discovered  in 
all  the  countries  formerly  occupied  either  by  Goths  or  Ger- 
mans. Where,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  was  the  Runic  alphabet 
learned,  if  not  from  the  Greeks  and  Romans  ?     If  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  find  a  foreign  origin  for  it,  I  think  there 
can  be  no  great  difficulty  in  discovering  one  which  has  at  least 
probability  on  its  side.   The  Phoenicians,  from  whom  so  many 
other  nations  derived  their  alphabets,  were  for  many  ages  in 
the  undisputed  possession  of  the  traffic  of  the  Baltic.     We 
have  historical  evidence  in  our  hands  that  several  of  those 
German  nations  which  inhabited  the  countries  on  the  Baltic, 
were  infinitely  more  advanced  in  cultivation  than  the  more 
warlike  tribes  which  occupied  the  Roman  frontier,  and  the 
borders  of  the  Rhine.     Here  also,  by  the  Baltic  Sea,  wag 
the  original  seat  of  that  worship  of  Hertha,  which  is  repre- 


154  ITS    MYSTERIOUS    CHARACTERS. 

sented  by  Tacitus  to  have  consisted  in  a  species  of  mysteries. 
Perhaps  the  Runic  characters  were  connected  with  this 
worship,  and  entirely  appropriated  to  the  superstitious  pur- 
poses of  its  priests.  That  they  were  at  least  employed  in 
magical  ceremonies,  is  so  certain,  that  I  need  not  occupy 
your  time  in  proving  it.  The  wooden  characters  were  pro- 
bably arranged  in  some  mysterious  order  so  as  to  answer 
the  purpose  of  a  rubric  to  the  prophetic  or  devoting  song 
which  was  muttered  over  them.  The  greater  characters 
seem  to  have  been  again  and  again  repeated  in  some  method 
which  we  cannot  explain,  but  which  certainly  was  not  with- 
out its  meaning.  The  form  in  which  we  find  the  Runic 
letters  inscribed  on  stones,  affords,  in  my  opinion,  indubita- 
ble proof  that  they  were  at  least  sometimes  applied  to  such 
purposes  as  these.  It  is  not  easy,  indeed,  for  those  who  are 
at  home  only  in  the  world  of  civilization  and  refinement  to 
enter  into  the  spirit  of  these  barbarous  observances.  For 
my  part  I  have  little  difficulty  in  conceiving  that  the  me- 
thods adopted  by  these  northern  priests  were  the  very  best 
they  could  have  chosen  in  order  to  magnify  the  importance 
of  their  own  attainments,  and  impress  the  minds  of  their  pu- 
pils, or  of  the  multitude,  with  a  due  sense  of  mystery  and 
awe.  But  it  is  in  our  times  by  no  means  uncommon  to  see 
the  same  men  mistaking  fiction  for  history,  and  history  for 
fiction. 

In  Saxony  itself,  after  its  submission  to  the  yoke  of  Char- 
lemagne, the  theology  of  Odin  became  very  soon  rooted  out. 
But  even  in  much  later  times  there  remained  many  traces 
of  its  superstitions.  The  country  people  would  not  part 
with  their  festival  of  springy  and  that  most  innocent,  most 
natural,  and  most  universal  of  all  holydays,  was  still  hal- 
lowed with  due  observance  at  the  opening  of  the  May. 
Many  usages  of  the  same  kind  were  preserved  among  the 
Christian  services  of  the  Pentecost.  Even  at  the  present 
day,  in  many  of  the  northern  districts  of  Germany,  at  that 
season  of  the  year  when  the  day  is  longest,  great  fires  are 
Irindled  by  night  upon  the  mountains;  a  custom  whose 
meaning  has  long  since  been  forgotten,  but  which  is  beyond 
all  doubt  another  relic  of  that  ancient  system  so  long  para- 
mount in  all  the  regions  of  the  north.  It  was  natural  that 
those  traces  should  linger  the  longest  among  woods  and 


SCANDINAVIAN    REMAINS.  155 


hills,  which  were  of  old  the  favourite  scenes  of  this  Pagan 
worship.  Even  after  the  lapse  of  many  Christian  centuries, 
a  superstitious  reverence  is  still  attached  to  some  antique  and 
spreading  oaks  among  the  forests  of  the  Hartz  and  the  Rei- 
sengebirgen ;*  in  our  popular  poetry  the  odoriferous  linden 
is  still  invested  with  its  character  of  magic ;  and  the  branches 
of  the  willow  are  in  the  hands  of  every  fortune-telling  gipsy. 
Many  relics  of  the  deserted  faith  were,  indeed,  preserved,  but 
they  soon  assumed  the  character  of  mere  vulgar  delusions, 
and  sunk  far  below  the  loftiness  of  their  old  religious  desti- 
nation. To  the  inspired  prophetesses  and  mandrakes  of 
northern  antiquity,  succeeded  the  tricks,  the  execrations,  and 
the  midnight  dance  of  witches ;  and  in  place  of  Odin's  Val- 
halla, the  majestic  congregation  of  God's  and  heroes — came 
the  hauntings  of  the  Rheingau,  and  the  ghostly  tumults  of 
the  Night  of  Moonwort. 

In  the  meantime  the  theology  of  Odin,  after  being  ban- 
ished from  its  native  land,  found  a  secure  asylum  in  the 
Scandinavian  north ;  where  it  yielded,  not  till  after  a  long 
struggle,  late  and  reluctantly  to  the  Christian  faith,  and 
from  whence  the  knowledge  of  it,  preserved  in  many  glori- 
ous songs  and  legends,  has  in  later  days  been  communicated 
to  ourselves.  It  is  by  means  of  these  Scandinavian  remains 
that  we  are  now  enabled  to  trace  the  poetry  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  in  particular  the  whole  system  of  Teutonic  opin- 
ions, to  their  true  sources.  Above  all,  we  are  indebted  for 
these  advantages  to  the  Icelandic  Edda.  This  work  seems 
to  have  received  the  shape  in  which  it  now  appears  some- 
where between  the  ninth  and  the  thirteenth  centuries — be- 
tween the  age  of  Harald  Harfagr,  when  the  Normans  first 
established  themselves  in  Iceland,  and  the  death  of  Snorro 
Sturleson  and  the  suppression  of  the  Icelandic  freedom.  In 
its  later  parts  we  find  many  allusions  both  to  the  Greek  my- 
thology, and  to  Christianity,  partly  introduced  with  a  view 
of  tracing  similarities  between  those  systems  and  the  north- 
ern legends,  partly  for  the  purpose  of  connecting  the  history 
of  the  Scandinavian  tribes  with  that  of  the  ancient  nations. 
But  in  the  most  admirable  passages,  and  above  all,  in  the 
poetry  of  the  elder  Edda,  there  breathes,  in  its  utmost  purity, 

*  The  Hills  of  the  Giants  on  the  borders  of  Bohemia. 


156      GREEK  AND  SCANDINAVIAN  THEOLOGY  COMPARED. 

the  true  spirit  of  the  northern  theology.  The  perfect  unity 
of  this  system  is  that  which  distinguishes  it  most  remarkably 
from  that  of  the  Greeks.  The  Greek  theology  was  perhaps 
too  rich  to  permit  of  its  being  well  and  consistently  repre- 
sented in  one  picture.  Besides,  if  we  compare  it  with  the 
northern,  we  cannot  fail  to  observe  a  want  of  proper  end  or 
purpose  in  the  whole  of  its  arrangement.  The  divine  and 
heroic  world  of  the  Greeks  is  perpetually  losing  itself  in 
the  w^orld  of  men ;  their  poetry  in  the  world  of  prose  and 
reality.  But  the  theology  of  the  north  is  consistent  and  en- 
tire ;  every  thing  is  foretold  by  prophecies,  and  the  last  long 
expected  catastrophe  is  a  perfect  close.  The  whole  resem- 
bles one  progressive  poem — one  tragedy.  From  the  com- 
mencement, which  teaches  how  the  earth  and  the  world 
arose  out  of  the  carcase  of  a  benumbed  giant — and  the  de- 
scription of  those  happier  days  when  the  holy  ash  Ysdragill 
began  to  grow  green  over  the  old  abyss,  ("that  tree  of  life 
which  extendeth  its  roots  through  all  oceans,  and  spreads  its 
branches  over  the  universe,")  and  the  narration  how  bold 
heroes  and  the  friendly  spirits  of  light  overcame,  in  many 
combats,  the  might  of  the  giants  and  the  old  poAvers  of  dark- 
ness, down  to  the  last  great  mystery,  the  ruin  of  gods  and 
Asae — of  Odin  and  his  comrades — the  whole  is  one  great 
and  connected  poem  of  nature  and  heroism.  The  real  ob- 
ject upon  which  its  interest  depends  is,  as  in  almost  all  other 
poetical  legends,  the  termination  of  a  glorious  and  heroic 
world.  The  destiny  of  war  is  ever  most  hostile  to  the  no- 
blest, the  most  valiant,  and  the  most  graceful  of  heroes ;  and 
Odin  assembles  all  that  are  slain  in  his  Valhalla,  that  he 
may  have  the  more  friends  and  combatants  in  that  last  war 
against  the  power  of  his  enemies — a  war  in  which  he  is  of 
old  destined  to  be  not  the  victor  but  the  vanquished.  The 
first  incident  in  which  this  great  object  of  the  whole  is  set 
forth,  is  the  death  of  Balder.  As  in  the  Trojan  legends,  by 
the  death  of  the  two  noblest  heroes.  Hector  and  Achilles,  so 
here  also,  by  the  death  of  Balder,  "  the  favourite  of  all  the 
gods,  the  most  beautiful  of  warriors,"  there  is  shadowed  out 
the  universal  decay  of  the  heroic  world.  His  fate  is  fixed 
by  destiny ;  in  vain  does  the  foot  of  Odin  tread  the  path  to 
Hades.  Hela,  like  the  Theban  Sphinx,  gives  no  answer  but 
an  enigma — an  enigma  which  is  to  be  explained  by  fearfiil 


TEUTONIC  POETRY.  157 

tragedies,  and  secure  to  destruction  the  fated  prey.  Perhaps 
the  Ossianic  poetry — at  least  so  much  of  it  as  is  of  genuine 
antiquity — had  its  origin  about  the  same  period  with  these, 
but  as  the  knowledge  of  it  was  at  all  times  confined  to  the 
small  circle  of  the  Scottish  Gaels,  and  never  exerted  the 
smallest  influence  on  the  common  literature  of  Europe,  I 
shall  reserve  the  consideration  of  it  till  another  opportunity. 
Among  the  Teutonic  nations,  scattered  over  the  different 
regions  of  Europe,  their  original  love  of  poetry  was  mani- 
fested in  a  great  number  of  attempts  to  set  forth  Christianity 
in  verse,  and  to  give  a  poetical  clothing  to  the  histories  of 
the  sacred  writings.  Many  such  attempts  were  made  among 
the  Saxons  in  England,  and  one  in  Southern  Germany  by 
Ottfried.  These  attempts,  so  far  as  the  mere  art  of  poetical 
composition  is  concerned,  were,  indeed,  like  some  more  mo- 
dern attempts  of  much  greater  poets,  not  very  successful. 
But  they  have  been  of  great  advantage  to  us,  for  they  have 
supplied  the  most  perfect  means  of  information  with  respect 
to  the  poetical  language  and  versification  of  that  time.  Above 
all,  they  are  valuable  because  these  Christian  poets  did  not 
invent  a  form  of  writing  for  themselves,  but  were  contented 
with  copying  and  adopting  that  of  the  heroic  poems  of  the 
preceding  ages.  We  are  at  least  certain  that  this  was  the 
case  with  regard  to  Ottfried,  for  we  have  still  in  our  hands 
a  heroic  and  warlike  poem  of  the  same  period,  which  agrees 
in  all  circumstances  with  the  form  of  his  writings.  This  is 
a  war  song  used  by  Lewis,  King  of  the  East  Franks,  in  his 
contest  with  the  Normans.  A  song  of  such  antiquity  (for 
it  is  now  more  than  nine  hundred  years  old)  is  indeed,  on 
account  of  that  circumstance  alone,  an  invaluable  monument. 
But  it  contains  one  passage  which  is  of  some  historical  im- 
portance. The  poet  describes  the  solemn  stillness,  and  calm 
bravery  of  the  marshalled  army,  before  the  moment  of  attack: 

"There  were  red  cheeks  in  the  ranks 
Of  the  war-delighting  Franks."* 

And  a  little  afterwards  he  says, 

•'  Now  the  song  was  sung. 
And  the  battle  begun."t 


*  Blut  schien  en  wangen  t  Lied  war  gesungen, 

Kampf-lustiger  Franken.  Schlacht  ward  begannen. 

14 


158  PECULIARITIES  OF  HEROIC  POETRY. 

We  can  see  from  this  that  the  same  old  German  custom, 
which  is  described  by  Tacitus,  of  inspiritin»-  the  soldiers  for 
action  by  a  heroic  song,  was  still  preserved,  after  the  lapse 
of  many  centuries,  among  the  armies  of  the  Teutonic  peo- 
ples. That  great  attention  was  still  bestowed  by  the  Chris- 
tian Germans  on  heroic  poetry,  may  be  inferred  from  the 
opening  of  one  of  these  old  poems — one  which  certainly 
could  not  at  first  sight  be  supposed  likely  to  contain  any 
warlike  allusions,  since  it  is  professedly  a  panegyric  on  St. 
Annus,  the  Bishop  of  Cologne. 

"  Often  have  we  heard  bards  tell, 
How  ill  the  old  time  towers  and  cities  fell. 
How  haughty  kingdoms  met  their  destined  day, 
And  peerless  champions  bled  their  souls  away  !"* 

The  proper  subjects  of  all  heroic  poems — the  fall  of  nations, 
and  the  contest  of  heroes,  are  here  pointed  out  in  a  manner 
at  once  short  and  impressive. 

Although  the  Nibelungen-lied  was  not  in  all  probability 
reduced  to  its  present  form  before  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  yet  I  think  the  present  may  be  the  fittest 
opportunity  for  directing  your  attention  to  a  composition  so 
nearly  of  the  same  class  with  those  we  have  been  considering. 

That  skilful  unfolding  of  incidents,  and  almost  dramatic 
vividness  of  representation  which  form  the  chief  character- 
istic of  the  Homeric  poems,  are  qualities  which  were  pecu- 
liar to  the  Greeks,  and  have  never  been  imitated  with  much 
success  by  the  poets  of  any  other  people.  But  among  the 
heroic  poems  of  those  of  other  nations  which  have  remained 
satisfied  with  a  more  simple  mode  of  poetry,  this  German 
poem  claims  a  very  high  place — perhaps  among  all  the 
heroic  chivalrous  poems  of  modern  Europe  it  is  entitled  to 
the  first.  It  is  peculiarly  distinguished  by  its  unity  of  plan ; 
it  is  a  picture,  or  rather  it  is  a  series  of  successive  pictures, 
each  naturally  following  the  other,  and  all  delineated  with 
great  boldness  and  simplicity,  and  a  total  disregard  of  all 
superfluities.  The  German  language  appears  in  this  work 
in  a  state  of  perfection  to  which,  in  the  subsequent  periods 
of  its  early  history,  it  had  no  pretensions.     Along  with  all 

»  "  Wir  horten  von  beiden  oft  nnals  singen 
Und  wie  sie  feste  Burgen  brachen, 
Wie  hohe  konipreicke  all  vorgingin 
Und  wie  sich  liebe  kampfgenossen  schieden." 


SUPERIORITY  OF  THE  GERMAN  LANGUAGE.  159 

its  natural  liveliness  and  strength,  it  seems  at  that  time  to 
have  possessed  a  flexibility  which  soon  afterwards  gave 
place  to  a  style  of  affectation,  hardness,  and  perplexity.  The 
heroic  legends  of  all  nations  have,  as  I  have  already  several 
times  mentioned,  a  great  deal  in  common  so  far  as  their  es- 
sence and  purpose  are  concerned ;  their  variety  is  only  pro- 
duced by  their  being  imbued  with  the  peculiar  feelings,  and 
composed  in  the  peculiar  measures,  of  different  nations.  In 
the  Nibelungen-lied,  in  the  same  manner  as  in  the  legends 
of  Troy  and  of  Iceland,  the  interest  turns  on  the  fate  of  a 
youthful  hero,  who  is  represented  as  invested  with  all  the 
attributes  of  beauty,  magnanimity,  and  victory — but  dearly 
purchasing  all  these  perishable  glories  by  the  certainty  of 
an  early  and  a  predicted  death.  In  his  person,  as  is  usual, 
we  have  a  living  type  both  of  the  splendour  and  the  decline 
of  the  heroic  world.  The  poem  closes  with  the  description 
of  a  great  catastrophe,  borrowed  from  a  half-historical  inci- 
dent in  the  early  traditions  of  the  north.  In  this  respect 
also,  as  in  many  others,  we  cannot  fail  to  perceive  a  resem- 
blance to  the  Iliad ;  if  the  last  catastrophe  of  the  German 
poem  be  one  more  tragical,  bloody,  and  Titanic  than  any 
thing  in  Homer,  the  death  of  the  German  hero,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  in  it  more  solemnity  and  stillness,  and  is  withal 
depicted  with  more  exquisite  touches  of  tenderness,  than  any 
similar  scene  in  any  heroic  poem  with  which  I  am  acquainted. 
The  Nibelungen-lied  is,  moreover,  a  poem  abounding  in 
variety ;  in  it  both  sides  of  human  life,  the  joyful  as  well  as 
the  sorrowful,  are  depicted  in  all  their  strengtL  The  pro- 
mise of  the  opening  stanza  is  fulfilled. 

*'  I  sing  of  loves  and  wassellings,  if  ye  will  lend  your  ears, 
Of  bold  men's  bloody  combatings,  aod  gentle  ladies'  tears."* 


*"  Von  freuden  und  festes  zeiten,  von  weinen,  und  von  klagen 
Von  kulner  beiden  streiten,  mögt  ihr  nun  wunder  hören  sagen." 


LECTURE  VII. 


OP  THE  MIDDLE   AGE — OP   THE    ORIGIN  OF  THE    MODERN   EUROPEAN   LAN- 

GUAGES POETRY    OF   THE    MIDDLE    AGE LOVE     POETRY CHARACTER. 

OF  THE    NORMANS,  AND    THEIR    INFLUENCE  ON  THE  CHIVALROUS    POEMS 
— PARTICULARLY  THOSE  WHICH  TREAT  OF  CHARLEMAGNE. 


We  often  think  of  and  represent  to  ourselves  the  middle 
age,  as  a  blank  in  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  an  empty 
space  between  the  refinement  of  antiquity  and  the  illumina- 
tion of  modern  times.  We  are  willing  to  believe  that  art 
and  science  had  entirely  perished,  that  their  resurrection 
after  a  thousand  years'  sleep  may  appear  something  more 
wonderful  and  sublime.  Here,  as  in  many  others  of  our 
customary  opinions,  we  are  at  once  false,  narrow-sighted, 
and  unjust ;  we  give  up  substance  for  gaudiness,  and  sacri- 
fice truth  to  effect.  The  fact  is,  that  the  substantial  part  of  the 
knowledge  and  civilization  of  antiquity  never  was  forgotten, 
and  that  for  very  many  of  the  best  and  noblest  productions 
of  modern  genius,  we  are  entirely  obliged  to  the  inventive 
spirit  of  the  middle  age.  It  is  upon  the  whole  extremely 
doubtful  whether  those  periods  which  are  the  most  rich  in 
literature,  possess  the  greatest  share  either  of  moral  excel- 
lence or  of  political  happiness.  We  are  well  aware  that  the 
true  and  happy  age  of  Roman  greatness  long  preceded  that 
of  Roman  refinement  and  Roman  authors ;  and  I  fear  there 
IS  but  too  much  reason  to  suppose  that,  in  the  history  of  the 
modern  nations,  we  may  find  many  examples  of  the  same 
kind.  But  even  if  we  should  not  at  all  take  into  our  con- 
sideration these  higher  and  more  universal  standards  of  the 
worth  and  excellence  of  ages  and  nations,  and  although  we 
should  entirely  confine  our  attention  to  literature  and  intel- 
lectual cultivation  alone,  we  ought  still,  I  imagine,  to  be 
very  far  from  viewing  the  period  of  the  middle  ages  with  the 
fashionable  degree  of  self-satisfaction  and  contempt. 


THE  POETICAL  WEALTH  OF  THE  GREEKS.  161 

If  we  consider  literature  in  its  widest  sense,  as  the  voice 
which  gives  expression  to  human  intellect — as  the  aggre- 
gate mass  of  symbols  in  which  the  spirit  of  an  age  or  the 
character  of  a  nation  is  shadowed  forth  ;  then,  indeed,  a  great 
and  accomplished  literature  is,  without  all  doubt,  the  most' 
valuable  possession  of  which  any  nation  can  boast.  But  if 
we  allow  ourselves  to  narrow  the  meaning  of  the  word  lite- 
rature so  as  to  make  it  suit  the  limits  of  our  own  prejudices, 
and  expect  to  find  in  all  literatures  the  same  sort  of  excel- 
lencies, and  the  same  sort  of  forms,  we  are  sinning  against 
the  spirit  of  all  philosophy,  and  manifesting  our  utter  igno- 
rance of  all  nature.  Every  where,  in  individuals  as  in  spe- 
cies, in  small  things  as  in  great,  the  fulness  of  invention 
must  precede  the  refinements  of  art, — legend  must  go  before 
history,  and  poetry  before  criticism.  If  the  literature  of  any 
nation  has  had  no  such  poetical  antiquity  before  arriving  at 
its  period  of  regular  and  artificial  development,  we  may  be 
sure  that  this  literature  can  never  attain  to  a  national  shape 
and  character,  or  come  to  breathe  the  spirit  of  originality  and 
independence.  The  Greeks  possessed  such  a  period  of  po- 
etical wealth  in  those  ages  (ages  certainly  not  very  remark- 
able for  their  refinement  either  in  literature,  properly  so 
called,  or  in  science)  which  elapsed  between  the  Trojan  ad- 
ventures and  the  times  of  Solon  and  Pericles,  and  it  is  to  this 
period  that  the  literature  of  Greece  was  mainly  indebted  for 
the  variety,  originality,  and  beauty  of  its  unrivalled  produc- 
tions. What  that  period  was  to  Greece,  the  middle  age  was 
to  modern  Europe ;  the  fulness  of  creative  fancy  was  the 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  them  both.  The  long  and 
silent  process  of  vegetation  must  precede  the  spring,  and  the 
spring  must  precede  the  maturity  of  the  fruit.  The  youth 
of  individuals  has  been  often  called  their  spring-time  of  life ; 
I  imagine  we  may  speak  so  of  whole  nations  with  the  same 
propriety  as  of  individuals.  They  also  have  their  seasons 
of  unfolding  intellect  and  mental  blossoming.  The  age  of 
crusades,  chivalry,  romance,  and  minstrelsy,  was  an  intel- 
lectual spring  among  all  the  nations  of  the  west. 

Literature,  however,  may  be  considered  in  another  point 
of  view,  besides  this  poetical  one,  in  which  our  chief  atten- 
tion is  bestowed  on  invention,  feeling,  and  imagination.  It 
may  also  be  regarded  as  it  is  the  great  organ  of  tradition,  by 

14* 


1G2  INFLUENCE  OF  A  DEAD  LANGUAGE, 

means  of  which  the  knowledge  of  the  ancient  world  is  trans- 
mitted to  the  modern,  and  not  only  preserved  in  its  original 
integrity,  but  also  daily  augmented  and  improved  by  the  na- 
tural progress  of  ages.  The  poetical  department  of  litera- 
ture is  that  which  has  been  developed  in  the  different  ver- 
nacular dialects  of  modern  Europe;  the  other,  which  has 
for  its  object  the  preservation  of  inherited  knowledge,  must 
be  sought  for  in  that  Latin  literature  of  the  middle  age, 
which  was  the  common  property  of  all  the  nations  of  the 
west.  Even  with  regard  to  this  we  shall  find,  if  we  con- 
sider the  case  with  due  attention,  and  enter  into  the  true  his- 
tory and  spirit  of  the  middle  age,  that  the  progress  of  litera- 
ture was  something  very  different  from  what  we  are  in  gene- 
ral accustomed  to  suppose. 

If  we  should  take  nothing  more  into  consideration  than 
poetry  and  the  development  of  national  intellect  in  the  ver- 
nacular tongues,  we  might  very  naturally  wish  that  no  such 
Latin  literature  had  ever  existed,  and  that  the  dead  language 
had  gone  altogether  out  of  use.  There  is  no  doubt  that  its 
use  contributed  in  no  small  degree  to  take  away  all  life  from 
history  and  philosophy,  more  particularly  from  the  last. 
There  was  indeed  something  beyond  measure  barbarous  and 
ruinous  in  the  custom  of  treating  all  matters  connected  with 
science,  learning,  legislation,  and  state-policy,  in  a  dead  and 
foreign  language.  Its  consequences  were  disadvantageous 
in  many  respects,  but  above  all  in  regard  to  poetry.  A  great 
many  poetical  monuments  of  the  Germans,  and  indeed  of  all 
the  western  nations,  have  perished,  in  consequence  of  the 
pains  taken  by  well-meaning  translators  and  would-be  ex- 
pounders, who  were  indefatigable  in  rendering  every  thing 
into  Latin,  and  clothing  what  was  originally  true  poetry  and 
heroic  legend,  in  the  disguises  of  dull  prose  and  incredible 
history.  Many  poetical  works  have,  in  another  point  of 
view,  been  deprived  of  all  their  living  influence  on  ages  and 
peoples,  by  the  folly  of  their  authors  who  consumed  great 
natural  powers  in  the  vain  attempt  to  do  justice  to  a  living 
fancy  in  a  forgotten  language.  Of  this  I  might  quote  a 
thousand  unhappy  examples  from  the  good  nun  Roswitha, — 
the  author  of  a  neglected  poem  in  Latin  upon  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  great  Saxon  emperor,  which,  had  she  written  it 
in  German,  might  have  furnished  us  with  a  valuable  monu- 


THE  LATIN  LANGUAGE.  163 

merit  of  language,  and  history,  and  poetry  too, — down  to 
Petrarch,  who  despised  as  juvenile  and  sentimental  trifles 
those  Italian  love-poems  which  have  rendered  him  immor- 
tal, and  expected  to  establish  his  true  fame  on  a  now  forgot- 
ten Latin  epic,  in  celebration  of  Scipio  Africanus;  nay,  I 
might  cite  before  you  a  whole  band  of  true  poets,  the  greater 
part  Germans  and  Italians,  who  flourished  so  late  as  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  and  wrote  every  thing  in 
Latin. 

But  the  consideration  of  all  the  very  evident  disadvanta- 
ges which  resulted  from  the  employment  of  the  Latin  lan- 
guage in  the  middle  age,  must  not  make  us  forget  that  be- 
fore the  several  dialects  now  in  use  had  acquired  some  de- 
gree of  precision  and  refinement,  a  common  language  was 
absolutely  necessary  in  Western  Europe,  not  only  for  the 
purposes  of  religious  worship,  learning,  and  education,  but 
even  for  conducting  the  international  affairs  of  the  different 
states.  The  language  which  was  adopted  forms  the  invalu- 
able bond  of  connection  by  which  the  Old  World  is  united 
with  the  New.  Besides,  in  the  countries  whose  present 
languages  are  of  Roman  origin,  the  Latin,  in  those  days, 
was  scarcely  considered  as  a  foreign  or  even  as  a  dead  lan- 
guage, but  rather  as  the  old  and  genuine  language  of  the 
land,  preserved  in  its  regularity  and  purity  by  the  men  of 
learning  and  education,  in  opposition  to  the  corrupt  and 
vague  dialects  of  the  common  people — the  vulgar  tongues, 
as  they  were  called.  In  those  countries  the  Latin  language 
ceased  not  to  be  a  living  one  till  the  ninth  or  tenth  century ; 
for  about  that  time  the  language  of  the  people,  assuming  in 
each  country  a  separate  form,  began  to  be  no  longer  viewed 
as  a  mere  corruption  of  the  old  Latin,  but  as  an  altogether 
different  language.  The  progress  to  this  state  of  things  was 
indeed  so  gradual,  that  we  can  seldom  define  the  date  of  the 
great  change.  But  it  is  evident  that  the  delusion  under 
which  men  lay  in  considering  the  Latin  language  as  still 
alive,  many  centuries  after  it  was  really  extinct,  was  very 
much  prolonged  by  the  perpetual  use  of  that  language  in  all 
the  observances  of  religion,  and  in  all  the  societies  of  the 
cloisters.  It  sustained  daily  alterations,  but  was  never  alto- 
gether laid  aside. 

The  great  legacy  and  inheritance  of  all  the  knowledge 


164  LOSS  OF  ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS. 

and  ideas  of  the  ancient  world  is,  with  justice,  considered  as 
a  common  good  of  mankind,  which  is  committed  to  all  ages 
and  nations  in  their  turn,  which  ought  to  be  sacred  in  their 
eyes,  and  for  the  preservation  of  which  posterity  is  entitled 
to  call  them  to  an  account.  The  feelings  of  pain  with  which 
we  contemplate  any  violent  rupture  in  this  bond,  by  which 
we  are  connected  with  the  world  of  our  ancestors,  and  those 
of  disgust  with  which  we  repel  the  attempts  of  such  as 
would  injure  or  weaken  it,  are  on  the  Avhole  just  and  honour- 
able feelings.  But  it  is  only  when  we  find  an  age  or  a  na- 
tion to  have  been  capable  of  deliberately  destroying,  or 
treating  with  utter  contempt  and  neglect,  the  monuments  of 
ancient  refinement ;  in  short,  it  is  only  in  the  case  of  a  total 
ruin  of  science  that  we  can  be  entitled  to  heap  upon  them 
the  terrible  reproach  of  barbarity.  No  such  total  ruin  ever 
did  take  place ;  and  wilful  destruction,  if  it  did  sometimes 
occur  in  regard  to  the  imitative  arts,  was  at  the  least  ex- 
tremely rare  so  far  as  literature  was  concerned.  I  know  of 
no  wilful  destruction  of  literary  monuments  but  one — the 
burning  of  certain  of  the  then  extant  amatory  Greek  poets, 
which  took  place  in  Constantinople  pretty  far  down  in  the 
middle  age,  and  was  entirely  owing  to  sacerdotal  aversion 
for  the  extremely  offensive  indecencies  of  these  authors. 
This  moral  squeamishness,  which  induced  men  to  forget 
not  only  the  indulgence  at  all  times  given  to  poetical  ima- 
gination, but  also  the  reverence  due  to  all  monuments  of 
language  and  antiquity,  may,  it  is  true,  appear  very  ridiculous 
in  our  eyes.  But  that  the  collectors  and  transcribers  of  the 
middle  age  (both  in  the  Eastern  and  Western  World)  were, 
in  general,  tolerably  free  from  any  such  over-scrupulous 
niceties,  is  pretty  evident  from  the  abundant  collection  of 
indecent  poems  in  both  the  ancient  languages,  with  which 
we  have  it  still  in  our  power  to  regale  ourselves.  Unfor- 
tunate accidents,  and  the  events  of  war,  have  indeed  occa- 
sioned the  loss  of  many  interesting  monuments  both  of  litera- 
ture and  antiquity.  This  has  been  the  case  even  in  the 
more  recent  times,  and  above  all,  since  the  invention  of 
printing  itself  How  much  more  frequently  must  it  have 
occurred  in  the  times  which  preceded  that  invention,  when 
instead  of  our  enormous  libraries  of  printed  books,  the 
learned  had  nothing  but  manuscripts,  and  these  so  costly 


MULTIPLYING  OF  MANUSCRIPTS.  165 

that  no  man  could  have  access  to  many.  Even  in  the  most 
refined  periods  of  the  ancient  world,  long  before  Goths  had 
possessed  Rome,  or  Arabs  Alexandria,  whole  libraries  had 
fallen  a  prey  to  the  ravages  of  hostile  fire,  and  hundreds, 
nay,  thousands  of  works  had  perished,  of  which  no  other 
copies  were  in  existence.  We  are  accustomed  to  lament 
over  the  loss  of  a  few  great  works,  and  to  inveigh  with  un- 
mitigated severity  against  the  barbarity  of  the  middle  ages. 
But  that  the  loss  of  a  single  work  or  a  single  author  fur- 
nishes no  ground  for  accusing  a  whole  period  of  barbarism, 
may  be  gathered  from  the  well  known  history  of  the  books 
of  Aristotle.  It  appears  that  even  among  the  ancients  them- 
selves, such  was  the  neglect  of  these  writings,  which  we 
consider  as  among  the  most  precious  monuments  of  Grecian 
intellect,  that  there  remained  at  one  time  but  a  single  copy, 
— and  that  too  rescued  from  destruction  by  an  accident  of 
the  most  extraordinary  nature.  This  occurred  in  the  very 
middle  of  the  period  which  we  are  used  to  admire  as  the 
most  brilliant  era  of  literature  and  refinement  among  the 
Greeks  aind  Romans.  And  even  allowing  that  historical 
criticism  may  furnish  us  with  some  reasons  to  doubt  the 
literal  accuracy  of  this  account,  yet  that  will  very  little  afiect 
my  present  argument.  If  this  did  not  happen  with  regard 
to  Aristotle,  we  are  quite  sure  that  the  same  thing  happened 
to  many  other  great  authors,  with  only  this  difference,  that 
the  dangers  from  which  his  writings  escaped  proved  fatal  to 
theirs.  In  the  western  countries  of  Europe,  after  the  time 
of  Charlemagne,  the  multiplying  of  manuscripts  was  a  work 
pursued  with  the  most  zealous  and  systematical  application. 
I  doubt  v/hether  the  same  object  was  ever  honoured  with  so 
much  public  patronage,  either  m  Rome  or  Alexandria,  or 
any  where  else,  during  the  most  polished  period  of  later  an- 
tiquity. That  even  in  this  respect  Christian  writings  and 
Christian  authors  Avere  more  attended  to  than  any  others,  is 
not  to  be  denied,  and  perhaps  is  scarcely  to  be  blamed.  But 
how  many  of  the  heathen  and  ancient  Roman  writers,  were 
preserved  exclusively  in  the  West?  Constantinople  was 
never  plundered  by  the  Goths,  nor  subjected  to  the  licence 
of  any  whom  we  are  pleased  to  call  barbarians,  till  the  pe- 
riod of  the  crusades  and  the  Turks.  And  yet  I  have  little 
doubt  that  those  Greek  books  which  have  been  preserved 


166         MODERN  EUROPEAN  LANGUAGE. 

for  us  by  the  Byzantines,  bear  far  less  proportion  to  the  in- 
calculable riches  of  the  old  Grecian  literature,  than  the 
Latin  books  preserved  in  the  West  do  to  the  very  limited 
literature  of  ancient  Rome. 

Upon  the  whole,  in  the  first  part  of  the  middle  ages,  the 
scientific  education  was  very  wisely  directed  into  the  chan- 
nels most  favourable  for  the  maintenance  of  ancient  learn- 
ing. After  those  studies  which  had  an  immediate  refer- 
ence to  Christianity,  the  first  place  was  universally  given  to 
that  of  the  Latin  tongue — the  only  vehicle  of  learning  which 
was  then  in  use;  the  most  important  parts  of  the  mathe- 
matics were  carefully  taught ;  and  in  the  cloisters,  to  pre- 
serve the  writings  of  the  ancient  authors  was  not  barely 
considered  as  a  matter  of  duty,  but  formed  the  most  favourite 
exercise  of  monastic  skill.  With  regard  to  language,  which, 
in  our  present  subject  of  inquiry,  occupies  the  most  impor- 
tant place,  we  know  that  the  pupils  of  the  tenth  century 
were  taught  rhetoric  according  to  the  rules  of  Cicero  and 
Quintillian,  and  I  should  doubt  Avhether  either  ancient  or 
modern  times  could  have  supplied  them  with  better  guides. 
That  the  authors  of  the  eleventh  century  wrote  more  agree- 
ably and  perspicuously  in  Latin  than  those  of  the  latest 
Roman  age  and  the  sixth  century,  is  well  known  to  all 
who  are  acquainted  with  the  literary  history  of  the  time. 
In  all  those  qualities  of  good  writing  which  are  attainable 
by  men  composing  in  a  dead  language,  their  superiority  is 
most  evident.  Next  to  language  and  its  monuments,  nothing 
else  was  of  so  great  importance  as  the  preservation  of  the 
mathematics,  which  are  the  foundation  of  all  knowledge  of 
nature,  and  the  sources  of  so  many  sciences,  inventions, 
and  technical  expedients,  which  have  the  greatest  influence 
on  life.  The  rapid  increase  of  wealth  and  cities,  particu- 
larly in  Germany  under  the  Saxon  emperors,  and  the  flou- 
rishing state  of  architecture  and  many  other  arts  which  im- 
ply knowledge  and  science,  are  sufficient  proofs  of  the  labour 
and  exertion  which  were  in  these  times  bestowed  on  preserv 
ing  from  oblivion  the  mathematical,  mechanical,  and  tech 
nical  acquirements  of  the  ancients. 

What  we  have  most  reason  to  lament  is  the  separation 
which  took  place  between  the  West  and  the  knowledge  and 
treasures  of  the  Greek  language.     But  even  here  there  was 


PERIOD  OF  GERMAN  REFINEMENT.  167 

in  truth  no  such  thing  as  any  absolute  separation.  The 
Greek  language  was  certainly  not  unknown  in  Germany, 
at  least  between  the  time  of  Charlemagne,  who  learned 
Greek  himself  in  his  old  age,  and  established  Greek  profes- 
sors in  his  different  cities  of  the  empire,  and  that  of  the  two 
last  Othos  of  the  imperial  house  of  Saxony,  who  were  both 
skilled  in  Greek  sufficiently  for  the  purposes  of  conversa- 
tion. Although,  as  might  naturally  be  expected,  the  Bible 
and  the  Fathers  were  always  the  chiefs  objects  of  attention, 
we  know  that  Bruno,  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  who  was 
also  a  descendant  of  the  same  illustrious  house,  invited 
learned  men  from  Greece  for  the  express  purpose  of  ena- 
bling himself,  and  through  him  others,  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  profane  writers,  the  historians  and  philosophers  of 
antiquity.  Under  the  dynasty  of  the  Saxon  Cassars,  who 
were  perpetually  connected  by  marriages  with  the  court  of 
Constantinople,  the  north  of  Germany  was  adorned  with  a 
profusion  of  beautiful  churches,  all  more  or  less  in  imitation 
of  that  first  model  of  all  Christian  architecture,  the  Greek 
church  of  St.  Sophia.  Upon  the  whole,  during  this  period, 
— from  the  tenth  to  the  twelfth  century  inclusive,  Germany 
possessed  not  only  more  political  importance  but  also  more 
intellectual  cultivation,  than  any  other  country  in  Europe. 

The  reproach,  then,  which  is  commonly  thrown  out 
against  the  Teutonic  nations — that  they  introduced  barbarity 
and  ignorance  into  all  those  provinces  of  the  Roman  empire 
to  which  their  victories  reached,  is,  at  least  in  the  extent 
which  is  commonly  given  to  it,  altogether  false  and  un- 
grounded. To  none,  however,  of  all  these  nations  is  it  ap- 
plied with  so  much  injustice  as  to  the  Goths,  who  lived  at 
the  time  of  the  first  northern  inroads.  For  many  centuries 
before  these  expeditions  commenced,  the  Goths  had  been 
already  Christians ;  they  were  well  acquainted  Avith  the  im- 
portance of  regular  laws,  and  with  the  relations  of  the 
learned  and  rehgious  orders  of  society:  and  the  truth  is, 
that  far  from  promoting  any  work  of  destruction  in  the  Ro- 
man provinces,  they  were  indefatigable,  so  far  as  their 
powers  and  circumstances  admitted  of  it,  in  forwarding  and 
maintaining  the  interests  of  science.  The  only  exception  to 
this  is  to  be  found  in  those  times  when  the  Gothic  tribes  en- 
tered Italy  under  the  guide  of  a  foreign,  a  savage,  and  a 


168  COMPARED  WITH  OTHER  NATIONS. 

heathen  conqueror ;  or  when,  in  some  particular  instances, 
they  were  exasperated  by  party  hatred  and  Arian  bigotry, 
to  take  too  severe  revenge  against  the  equal  hatred  and  bigo- 
try of  their  Catholic  opponents.  Even  the  last  flourishing 
era  of  what  might  be  called  ancient  Roman  literature  took 
place  under  Theodorick ;  and  never  did  the  mock  patriotism 
of  Italians  take  up  a  more  ridiculous  idea  than  in  the  fa- 
vourite theme  of  their  later  poets — the  deliverance  of  Italy 
from  the  power  of  the  Goths.  In  the  time  of  Theodorick, 
and  under  the  government  of  the  Goths,  Italy  was  just  be- 
ginning to  enjoy  the  opening  of  a  new  period  of  happiness. 
The  true  misery  and  the  true  barbarism  began  when  the 
Goths  were  expelled,  and  Italy  submitted  her  neck  once 
more  to  the  deadening  tyranny  of  Byzantine  eunuchs  and 
satraps.  Let  us  only  compare  for  a  moment  the  activity  and 
life  of  Western  Europe,  her  nationalities,  her  adventures 
and  her  chivalrous  poetry,  with  the  long  and  mortal  sleep 
under  which  the  Eastern  Empire  lay  for  a  thousand  years, 
and  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  deciding  where  the 
charges  of  sloth  and  ignorance  ought  to  fall.  And  yet  the 
Byzantines  were  in  possession  of  much  greater  literary 
riches,  and  of  several  useful  inventions,  with  which  the 
West  was  entirely  unacquainted.  The  matter  of  chief  im- 
portance in  all  civilization  and  in  all  literature  is  not  the 
dead  treasures  we  possess,  but  the  living  uses  to  which  we 
apply  them. 

But  the  effect  was  beyond  all  comparison  more  unfortu- 
nate in  the  case  of  those  wandering  and  conquering  Teuto- 
nic nations  which  were  not  yet  Christians ;  these  were  much 
more  rude  in  their  manners  than  those  we  have  as  yet  been 
considering ;  they  had  no  acquaintance  either  with  the  so- 
cial or  the  scientific  refinements  of  the  Romans.  Such 
were  the  Franks  in  Gaul,  and  the  Saxons  in  Britain.  If 
we  must  fix  upon  some  period  as  that  of  complete  void, — as 
a  time  of  ignorance,  darkness,  and  destruction — we  shall 
find  the  nearest  approximation  to  what  we  wish  in  the  age 
which  elapsed  between  the  reigns  of  Theodorick  and  Char- 
lemagne. But  while  Italy  remained  bowed  down  under 
the  barbarous  oppression  of  Byzantium,  the  light  of  know- 
ledge had  found  its  refijge  in  the  cloisters  of  Ireland  and 
Scotland;  and  no  sooner  had  the  Saxons  in  England  re- 


THE  AGE  OF  CHARLEMAGNE.  169 

ceived  the  first  rudiments  of  knowledge  along  with  their 
Christianity,  than  they  at  once  carried  all  branches  of  sci- 
ence to  a  height  of  perfection  at  that  time  altogether  unrivalled 
among  the  nations  of  the  West.  By  them  this  light  was 
carried  into  France  and  Germany — there  never  more  to  be 
extinguished.  For  from  this  time  knowledge  was  not  only 
systematically  preserved,  but  unweariedly  cultivated  and  ex- 
tended, insomuch  that  the  proper  period  of  revival  should,  I 
think,  be  placed  not  in  the  time  of  the  crusades,  but  in  that 
of  Charlemagne.  But  even  in  the  darkest  period  of  all,  that 
between  the  sixth  century  and  the  eighth,  the  foundations 
were  already  laid  for  that  mighty  engine  of  instruction 
which  was  afterwards  perfected  by  the  wisdom  of  Charle- 
magne. The  establishment  of  learned  cloisters  and  brother- 
hoods had  already  commenced.  It  is  to  the  after  extension 
of  these  spiritual  corporations,  by  whose  exertions  lands 
were  rendered  fruitful,  and  peoples  civilized,  and  sciences 
useful,  and  states  secure,  that  Western  Europe  is  indebted 
for  the  superiority  which  she  attained  over  the  Byzantines 
on  the  one  hand,  who  were  possessed  of  more  hereditary 
knowledge,  and  the  Arabs  on  the  other,  who  had  every 
advantage  that  external  power  and  proselytizing  enthusiasm 
could  afford  them.  That  the  result  should  have  been  what 
we  now  see  it,  could  scarcely,  I  should  suppose,  have  been 
believed  to  be  within  the  reach  of  possibility  by  any  cotem- 
porary  spectator.  While  Alfred  lived  almost  in  the  poverty 
of  a  poet,  and  while  Charlemagne  practised  in  his  own  pa- 
lace the  frugality  of  a  monk,  how  must  their  attempts  in  the 
cause  of  science  have  been  limited  by  the  narrowness  of  their 
means!  and  what,  on  the  contrary,  would  have  been  too 
much  for  Haroon  al  Rasched  to  perform — living  as  he  did 
in  the  midst  of  the  untroubled  splendour  of  Bagdad,  and 
having  it  in  his  power  to  forward  the  cause  of  science  by 
all  the  aids  which  ingenuity  could  invent,  or  magnificence 
supply  !  The  result  may  give  us  an  important  lesson,  and 
teach  us  not  to  repose  our  confidence  in  the  munificence  of 
kings.  Science  is  not  made  to  be  cultivated  in  obedience 
to  the  command  of  a  monarch.  He  lends  it  indeed  a  tem- 
porary favour,  but  it  is  only  that  he  may  increase  his  own 
fame,  and  throw  additional  lustre  around  his  throne.  Ca- 
liphs  and   Sultans   attempted  in  vain   to    effect  what  was 

15 


170  HIS  ENCOURAGEMENT  OF  RELIGION. 

slowly  and  calmly  accomplished  in  the  unpretending  clois- 
ters of  the  West. 

The  exertions  of  Charlemagne  in  securing  the  indepen- 
dence, and  diffusing  the  establishment  of  religious  houses, 
have  entitled  him  to  the  warmest  gratitude  of  Europe,  and 
the  admiration  of  every  cultivated  age.  But  we  must  not 
conceal  from  ourselves,  that  great  as  were  the  merits  of 
Charlemagne,  both  in  regard  to  the  vernacular  and  the  Latin 
literature  of  Europe,  they  were  still  inferior  to  those  of  Al- 
fred. That  wise  and  virtuous  monarch  was  not  only,  like 
Charlemagne,  the  unwearied  patron  of  learning  in  all  its 
branches ;  he  was  himself  a  scholar  and  a  philosopher,  and 
he  even  contributed  more  than  any  other  individual  towards 
the  elegant  formation  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  tongue.  But  the 
successful  expeditions  of  the  Danes  threw  back  the  progress 
of  England;  and  the  literary  establishments  founded  by 
Charlemagne  in  France  and  Southern  Germany  were  dis- 
turbed, in  their  infancy,  by  the  attacks  made  on  the  one  part 
of  his  empire  by  the  Normans,  and  on  the  other  by  the 
Hungarians.  The  literature  which  flourished  soon  after- 
wards under  the  Saxon  emperors  was  in  every  respect  far 
superior  to  that  of  the  days  of  Alfred  or  Charlemagne.  At 
that  time  Germany  was  rich  above  all  other  things  in  good 
writers  of  history,  from  Eginhard,  the  secretary  of  Charle- 
magne, down  to  Otto  von  Freysingen,  a  prince  of  the  house 
of  Babenberg,  who  was  son  to  St.  Leopold,  and  gi'andson  to 
the  great  Barbarossa  of  the  imperial  family  of  Hohenstaufen. 
Her  riches  in  this  respect  were  indeed  greater  than  those  of 
any  other  country  in  Europe,  nor  is  the  circumstance  to  be 
wondered  at,  for  she  was,  in  fact,  the  centre  of  all  European 
politics.  It  is  a  very  common  thing  to  hear  all  those  Latin 
histories  of  the  middle  age,  which  were  written  by  clergy- 
men, classed  together  under  the  same  contemptuous  appella- 
tion of  '•'  Monkish  chronicles."  They  who  indulge  in  such 
ridicule,  must,  beyond  all  doubt,  be  either  ignorant  or  forget- 
ful that  these  Monkish  writers  were  very  often  men  of 
princely  descent;  that  they  were  intrusted  with  the  most 
important  affairs  of  government,  and  therefore  could  best 
explain  them ;  that  they  were  the  ambassadors  and  travel- 
lers of  the  times;  that  they  often  penetrated  into  the  remote 
East,  and  the  still  more  obscure  regions  of  the  North,  and 


THE  MIDDLE  AGES.  171 

were  indeed  the  only  persons  capable  of  describing  foreign 
countries  and  manners ;  that  in  general  they  were  the  most 
accomplished  and  intelligent  men  whom  the  world  could 
then  produce;  and  that,  in  one  word,  if  we  were  to  have 
any  histories  at  all  of  those  ages,  it  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary that  they  should  be  written  by  the  Monks.  The  re- 
proaches which  we  cast  out  against  the  men  and  the  man- 
ners of  the  middle  age  are  indeed  not  infrequently  altogether 
absurd  and  inconsistent.  When  we  wish  to  depict  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  clergy,  we  inveigh  against  them  for  tyranniz- 
ing over  kingdoms  and  conducting  negotiations ;  but  if  we 
talk  of  their  works,  then  they  were  all  ignorant,  slothful 
Monks,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  world,  and  therefore  could 
not  possibly  write  histories.  Perhaps  the  very  best  of  all 
situations  for  a  writer  of  history  is  one  not  widely  differing 
from  that  of  a  Monk — one  in  which  he  enjoys  abundant 
opportunities  of  gaining  experimental  knowledge  of  men 
and  their  affairs,  but  is  at  the  same  time  independent  of  the 
.world  and  its  transactions,  and  has  full  liberty  to  mature  in 
retirement  his  reflections  upon  that  which  he  has  seen.  Such 
was  the  situation  of  many  of  those  German  historians  who 
flourished  in  the  days  of  the  Saxon  Emperors.  The  more 
the  study  of  history  advances,  the  more  universally  are  their 
merits  recognized  But  if  Germany  had  the  advantage  in 
history,  the  superiority  of  France  and  England  was  equally 
apparent  in  philosophy.  These  countries,  indeed,  had  al- 
ready produced  several  distinguished  philosophical  writers, 
even  before  the  influence  of  the  Arabians  had  introduced  the 
monopolizing  despotism  of  Aristotle.  In  the  ninth  century 
there  arose  that  profound  inquirer  who,  as  it  is  doubtful 
whether  he  was  a  Scotsman  or  an  Irishman,  is  now  known 
by  the  reconciling  name  of  Scotus  Erigena.  No  less  pro- 
found, though  somewhat  more  limited  in  their  application, 
were  the  views  of  Anselm.  Abelard  was  both  a  thinker 
and  an  orator ;  his  language  was  elegant,  and  his  know- 
ledge of  antiquity  extensive, — praises  which  he  shares  with 
his  illustrious  scholar,  John  of  Salisbury. 

For  each  of  the  nations  which  speak  Romanic  dialects, 
there  mu^  have  existed  an  interval  of  chaos  and  confusion, 
before  they  set  themselves  free  from  the  rules  of  the  Latin 
language,  and  began  to  give  to  their  own  new  dialect  the 


172  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  LANGUAGE. 

shape  of  an  independent  tongue.  But  for  the  interference  of 
certain  unfortunate  accidents,  the  situation  of  the  Teutonic 
nations  must,  in  this  respect,  have  been  far  more  favourable 
than  that  of  the  others.  For  it  is  a  thing  infinitely  more 
easy  to  cultivate  at  the  same  time  two  languages  radically 
distinct,  than  to  give  a  new  form  to  a  language  which  has 
either  been  changed  by  some  internal  revolution,  or  mingled, 
in  great  part,  with  the  elements  of  some  other  language. 
That  must  always  be  a  work  of  great  labour  and  patience. 
But  it  happened  very  unfortunately  for  the  development  of 
the  Teutonic  language,  that  those  of  its  dialects  which  Avere 
first  cultivated  were  successively  forgotten  in  consequence  of 
political  events,  and  that  so  the  mighty  work  of  its  formation 
was  more  than  once  to  be  begun  again  from  the  commence- 
ment. The  Gothic  language,  which  was  the  first  that  at- 
tained some  degree  of  regularity,  perished  along  with  the 
nation  that  spoke  it.  The  Anglo-Saxon  attained  to  an  in- 
finitely higher  degree  of  perfection,  and  we  may  even  say, 
that,  in  the  days  of  Alfred,  it  already  possessed  all  the  neces- 
sary parts  of  a  complete  literature ;  a  great  many  works  had 
been  composed  in  it,  not  only  poems  and  translations,  but 
also  prose  histories,  and  treatises  concerning  many  depart- 
ments of  science.  But  this  language  also,  although  many 
of  its  monuments  are  still  in  existence,  passed  away  in  con- 
sequence of  the  Norman  conquest,  and  a  considerable  inter- 
val elapsed  before  the  present  English  language  was  formed 
out  of  the  mixture  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  French.  The 
work  of  polishing  the  Teutonic  tongue  was  therefore  to  be- 
gin again  for  the  third  time.  This  took  place  in  the  ninth 
century ;  for  it  was  then  that  our  present  High  Dutch  began 
to  be  in  some  measure  developed.  If  any  attempts  had  been 
made  upon  it  in  the  preceding  century,  they  were  irregular 
and  unimportant  in  their  results.  In  the  monuments  which 
we  possess  of  it  during  the  ninth  century,  we  can  perceive 
the  same  traces  of  weakness  and  unsettledness  which  charac- 
terize every  language  at  the  time  when  it  is  beginning  to 
recover  itself  after"  the  effects  of  a  great  mixture  or  revolu- 
tion in  its  elements.  The  High  Dutch  of  that  period  was 
exactly  in  the  situation  in  which  the  Romanic  dialects  were 
in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries.  We  are  accustomed 
to  talk  of  our  own  language  as  having  above  all  others  the 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GERMAN  LANGUAGE.  173 

advantage  of  being  pure  and  original.  This  might  be  very 
true  in  its  utmost  extent  of  the  old  Saxon  language,  but  no- 
thing can  be  less  so  of  our  present  German.  Our?  is  a 
modern  dialect,  which  arose  in  the  Carolingian  age  out  of 
the  confusion  of  many  old  German  dialects,  and  no  incon- 
siderable infusion  of  Latin  vocables ;  and  ought,  in  truth,  to 
be  classed  among  those  languages  which  arose  out  of  the 
political  intermixture  of  the  Roman  and  Teutonic  nations. 
Its  origin  and  early  development  are,  however,  well  worthy 
of  much  consideration,  for  it  was  long  the  language  of  the 
most  cultivated  nation  in  Europe,  and  its  formation  was  the 
favourite  object  of  some  of  the  greatest  geniuses  the  world 
has  ever  seen.  The  true  old  German  language,  that  was 
originally  and  universally  spoken  by  all  the  Teutonic  tribes, 
was  that  old  Saxon  which  attained  the  height  of  its  perfec- 
tion in  England  under  Alfred  the  Great,  That  the  Saxons 
of  Northern  Germany  spoke  the  same  language  with  those 
of  England,  admits  of  no  doubt ;  and  even  the  Franks  ori- 
ginally made  use  of  it.  It  was  common  to  all  the  Germans 
of  the  North.  The  Romans  made  use  of  Prankish  inter- 
preters in  England ;  the  British  Saxons  required  no  inter- 
preters at  all  in  Sweden ;  when  King  Alfred  entered  the 
Danish  camp  in  the  disguise  of  a  minstrel,  he  sung  songs 
written  not  in  a  foreign  language  but  in  his  own ;  and  al- 
though there  might  perhaps  be  some  small  difference  of  pro- 
nunciation, he  was  perfectly  intelligible  to  his  audience. 
Which,  then,  it  will  be  asked,  of  all  these  German  dialects 
was  the  language  of  the  poems  collected  by  Charlemagne  ? 
Not  the  Gothic,  for  that  was  entirely  gone,  or  at  best  under- 
stood only  by  a  few  scattered  inhabitants  of  the  mountains 
of  Asturia ;  nor  the  High  Dutch,  for  that  language  was  only 
beginning  to  assume  a  regular  appearance  half  a  century 
later,  and  received  its  name  of  Frankish,  expressly  because 
it  had  its  origin  in  the  Carolingian  age,  the  name  of  the 
ruling  Teutonic  tribe  being  used,  according  to  the  fashion 
of  that  period,  to  denote  every  thing  that  was  Teutonic. 
Now  it  is  evident  that  the  poems  collected  by  Charlemagne 
must  have  possessed  some  antiquity ;  they  must  have  existed 
for  two  centuries,  or  at  least  for  one.  I  have  little  hesitation 
in  saying,  that  I  believe  those  poems  to  have  been  composed 
in  the  old  Saxon  language,  the  same  which  Alfred  wrote, 

15* 


174  THE  TEUTONIC  TRIBES. 

and  which  was  spoken  by  Charlemagne  himself,  whenever 
he  did  not  make  use  of  Latin ;  for  we  must  recollect  that  the 
favourite  residence  of  Charlemagne  was  in  the  Rhenish 
Netherlands,  the  old  patrimony  of  the  Franks,  whose  lan- 
guage was  originally  the  same  with  that  of  the  Saxons. 
And  if  this  be  so,  the  remark  which  I  have  made  is  not 
merely  interesting  for  the  lover  of  language  and  poetry,  but 
may  be  of  considerable  importance  to  the  student  of  history 
himself 

The  origin  of  the  High  Dutch  language  seems  to  me  to 
be  best  explained  in  the  following  manner.  The  original 
seat  of  all  the  Teutonic  tribes  was  on  the  borders  of  the 
Baltic  Sea,  and  each  of  them  introduced  into  its  dialect 
greater  changes  in  proportion  as  it  removed  to  a  greater  dis- 
tance from  the  neighbourhood  of  those  ancient  settlements. 
The  Goths,  for  example,  were  the  first  to  extend  their  con- 
quests ;  they  founded  a  great  empire  between  the  Baltic  and 
the  Black  Sea,  and  living  there  in  the  midst  of  many  foreign 
nations,  from  each  of  which  they  were  continually  borrow- 
ing particular  words,  their  dialect  soon  came  to  be  intelli- 
gible only  to  themselves,  and  to  assume  all  the  appearances 
of  a  new  and  distinct  language.  In  the  southern  regions  of 
Germany,  above  all  in  the  Alpine  districts,  the  common  in- 
fluence of  climate  produced  its  effect ;  and  the  Teutonic  dia- 
lect, spoken  in  those  regions,  became  hard  and  guttural  like 
all  languages  of  mountainous  countries.  The  inextricable 
ming-lino-  of  the  various  Teutonic  dialects  in  Southern  Ger- 
many,  was  caused  by  the  successive  empire  and  colonizations 
of  the  Goths  and  the  Franks.  The  intermixture  of  Latin 
is  easily  accounted  for  by  the  Roman  colonies  on  the  Dan- 
ube, and  the  early  adoption  of  the  Christian  religion  by  the 
inhabitants  of  all  those  regions. 

Of  all  the  Romanic  dialects,  the  first  which  attained  any 
polish  was  that  of  Provence,  probably  because  it  had  less 
than  any  other  been  exposed  to  the  danger  of  foreign  inter- 
mixture. The  old  language  of  the  country  had  been  very 
early  forgotten  in  this  first  of  all  the  Roman  provinces,  and 
the  settlements  of  the  Teutonic  invaders  in  its  territory  were 
very  short-lived  and  inconsiderable.  To  close,  in  one  word, 
this  hasty  review  of  the  modern  European  languages,  the 
two  dialects  which  first  received  a  regular  development  were 


THE  AGE  OF  THE  CRUSADES.  175 

those  of  the  countries  which  had  been  least  exposed  to  the 
mixture  of  foreign  inhabitants, — the  Provencial,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  High  Dutch  on  the  other.  When  compared 
with  the  other  more  blended  dialects,  the  first  of  these  may 
be  considered  as  a  pure  Romanic,  the  other  as  a  pure  Ger- 
man language.  Of  three  other  Romanic  dialects,  which  had 
been  exposed  to  the  greatest  mixture  of  Teutonic, — the  Italian, 
the  Spanish,  and  the  Northern  French, — this  last  is  the  most 
removed  from  the  Latin,  and  was  the  last  to  arrive  at  the 
highest  point  of  its  perfection.  But  the  youngest  of  all  these 
languages  is  the  English ;  in  it  the  mixture  was  far  stronger 
than  in  any  of  the  others,  in  so  much,  indeed,  that  it  is  not 
easy  to  decide  which  of  its  elements — the  Germanic  or  the 
Romanic — has  the  predominance.  The  interval  of  chaos 
and  confusion  which  necessarily  precedes  any  mixture  of 
languages,  was  of  longer  duration  in  England  than  in  any 
other  part  of  Europe.  That  even  these  circumstances,  how- 
ever, are  not  incapable  of  producing  very  favourable  conse- 
quences, is  sufficiently  evident,  not  only  from  the  character- 
istic beauty,  power,  precision,  and  elegance  of  the  English 
language,  but  also  from  the  high  and  peculiarly  national 
spirit  of  the  English  literature.  The  English  literature 
stands  in  the  midst  between  the  German  and  the  Romanic, 
and  is  more  original  than  either. 

The  universal  awakening  of  a  new  life  and  a  youth  of 
feeling  in  the  age  of  the  Crusades,  peculiarly  manifested  it- 
self in  the  sudden  and  magical  unfolding  of  that  poesy  which 
received,  among  the  Provencials,  the  name  of  La  Gaye 
Science,  and  which,  diffusing  its  influence  over  all  the  in- 
tellectual nations  of  Europe,  gave  birth  to  a  rich  and  vari- 
ous literature  of  chivalrous  poetry  and  love  songs.  Although 
it  is  the  spirit  of  love  breathing  even  from  the  chivalrous 
poems  of  that  period,  which  forms  in  truth  the  distinction 
between  them  and  all  other  poems  of  the  heroic  kind,  I  shall 
begin  with  considering  those  which  were  more  expressly  of 
an  amatory  nature.  The  poetry  of  love,  therefore,  flourished 
first  among  the  Provencials,  who  transmitted  it  to  the  Ita- 
lians. The  first  Italian  poets  wrote  frequently  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Provence.  This  language  is  now  indeed  altoge- 
ther extinct,  but  many  works  composed  in  it  are  still  pre- 
served in  manuscript  collections.     Next  to  France  the  ear- 


176  LOVE  POETRY  OF  THE  AGE. 

liest  flourishing"  period  of  the  gay  science  was  in  Germany — 
chiefly  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  The  love 
poetry  of  Italy  attained  not  its  perfection  till  it  came  into  the 
hands  of  Petrarch  in  the  fourteenth,  and  the  proper  era  of  it, 
among  the  Spaniards,  was  in  the  fifteenth  century.  Nay, 
the  last  celebrated  Spanish  poet,  who  procured  to  himself  a 
great  name  by  poems  of  this  class,  was  yet  living  far  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  This  was  Castillejo,  who  followed  the 
first  Ferdinand  from  his  native  country  into  Austria. 

The  poetry  of  love  was  developed  differently  in  the  diffe- 
rent countries  of  Europe,  and  had  in  each  a  formation  in 
harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  nation.  With  the  exception 
of  the  Italians,  I  imagine  that  no  one  nation  borrowed  much 
in  this  matter  from  another;  while,  on  the  contrary,  the 
poetry  of  chivalry  was  transplanted  from  one  to  another,  and 
was  considered  the  common  property  of  them  all.  Even 
the  form  of  the  composition  varied  in  each  country.  The 
only  thing  that  was  common  to  them  all  was  rhyme,  and 
indeed  a  very  musical  use  of  it,  which  at  first  sight  might 
appear  to  be  mere  playfulness  and  profusion.  But  in  all 
probability  this  universal  coincidence  is  to  be  sought  for  va. 
the  nature  of  the  music  then  in  vogue,  for  almost  all  the  love 
poems  seem  to  have  been  made  expressly  to  be  sung. 

That  the  Germans  borrowed  their  love  poetry  from  that 
of  the  Provencials  is  very  often  asserted ;  but  I  think  there 
is  little  reason  for  thinking  so,  particularly  as  we  are  quite 
certain  that  the  Germans  had  love  poems  of  their  own  at  a 
much  earlier  period.  For  even  so  early  as  the  reign  of 
Lewis  the  Pious,  it  appears  that  it  was  found  necessary  to 
address  an  edict  to  the  nuns  of  the  German  cloisters,  admo- 
nishing them  to  restrain  their  inordinate  passion  for  singing 
love  songs  or  mynelieder.  It  is  true  that  in  the  age  of  chi- 
valry some  of  tire  German  princes,  who  had  large  posses- 
sions in  Italy,  wrote  poems  in  the  Provencial,  but  this  is  a 
matter  of  no  importance  in  regard  to  the  poetry  of  the  Ger- 
mans. Had  that  been  borrowed,  there  is  no  doubt  but  the 
minstrels  of  Germany  would  have  been  as  willing  to  con- 
fess their  obligations  as  Petrarch  afterwards  was ;  and  the 
more  so,  that  the  German  authors  of  narrative  chivalrous 
poems  are  fond  of  owning,  even  more  frequently  than  we 
could  have  wished,  how  much  they  were  indebted  to  the  in- 


GERMAN  LOVE  POETRY.  177 

% 

Tendon  of  their  Provencial  or  French  predecessors.  How- 
ever this  might  have  been,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  whole 
form,  and  character,  and  spirit  of  the  German  love  poems, 
are  essentially  different  from  those  of  the  French  or  the  Pro- 
vencial. The  German  collection  of  this  kind  is,  moreover, 
by  far  the  richest  in  existence. 

The  circumstance  which  affords  us  most  delight  in  these 
productions  is  the  spirit  of  gentleness  and  tenderness  with 
which  they  are  imbued,  and  our  delight  is  mingled  with  not 
a  little  of  wonder,  when  we  learn  that  their  authors  were  not 
unfrequently  princes  and  knights,  with  whose  characters  we 
are  familiar  in  history,  as  among  the  boldest  and  the  most 
heroic  of  their  time.  But  this  apparent  contradiction  is  ne- 
vertheless very  consistent  with  nature,  and  true  tenderness  is 
never  so  engaging  as  when  it  is  united  with  manly  valour. 
In  the  midst  of  the  most  warlike  life  nature  still  leaves  room 
for  the  affections,  and  tempers  the  rage  of  arms  with  the 
soothing  influence  of  love  and  compassion.  That  old  melody, 
which  is  commonly  ascribed  to  the  English  Richard,  breathes 
the  very  spirit  of  calm  dejectedness,  and  is,  indeed,  among 
the  most  precious  of  monuments,  if  it  be  really  the  produc- 
tion of  the  lion-hearted  king. 

The  softness  of  feeling,  and  the  musical  elegance  of  lan- 
guage by  which  these  German  poems  are  distinguished, 
have  induced  certain  critics  to  throw  out  against  them  the 
reproaches  of  uniformity  and  triflingness.  The  reproach  of 
uniformity  strikes  me  as  being  a  very  singular  one ;  it  is  as 
if  we  should  condemn  the  spj-ing,  or  a  garden,  for  the  mul- 
titude of  its  flowers.  It  is  perhaps  true  enough  that  orna- 
ments of  many  kinds  are  more  delightful  when  they  occur 
singly,  than  when  we  see  them  gathered  together  in  masses. 
Laura  herself  could  scarcely  have  read  her  own  praises 
without  weariness,  had  she  been  presented  at  any  one  time 
with  all  the  verses  which  Petrarch  composed  upon  her  even 
during  the  period  of  her  life.  The  impression  of  uniformity 
arises  from  our  seeing  these  poems  bound  together  into  large 
collections — a  fate  which  was  prebably  neither  the  design 
nor  the  hope  of  those  who  composed  them.  But,  in  truth, 
not  only  love  songs,  but  all  lyrical  poems,  if  they  are  really 
true  to  nature,  and  aim  at  nothing  more  than  the  expression, 
of  individual  feelings,  must  necessarily  be  confined  within  a 


178  ESTIMATION  OF  THE  FEMALE  SEX. 

very  narrow  range  both  of  thought  and  of  sentiment.  Of 
this  we  find  many  examples  in  the  high  species  of  lyrical 
poetry  among  all  nations.  Feeling  must  occupy  the  first 
place  wherever  it  is  to  be  powerfully  and  poetically  repre- 
sented ;  and  where  feeling  is  predominant,  variety  and  rich- 
ness of  thought  are  always  things  of  very  secondary  impor- 
tance. The  truth  is,  that  great  variety  in  lyrical  poetry  is 
never  to  be  found,  except  in  those  ages  of  imitation  when 
men  are  fond  of  treating  of  all  manner  of  subjects,  in  all 
manner  of  forms.  Then  indeed  v/e  often  find  the  tone  and 
taste  of  twenty  different  ages  and  nations  brought  together 
within  the  same  collection,  and  observe  that  the  popularity 
of  the  poet  is  increased  exactly  in  proportion  as  he  descends 
from  his  proper  dignity, — when  simplicity  is  sacrificed  to 
conceits  and  epigrams,  and  the  ode  sinks  into  an  occasional 
copy  of  verses. 

The  second  criticism  which  stigmatizes  these  poems  as 
trifling,  is  indeed  founded  on  truth;  but  I  am  extremely 
doubtful  whether  that  prove  any  thing  against  the  merits  of 
the  poems.  Even  the  ancients,  although  the  full  violence 
of  passion  is  often  enough  depicted  in  their  Erotic  poems, 
have  nevertheless  recognized  that  in  its  nature  the  feeling  of 
love  is  a  playful  and  sportive  one,  by  the  mode  in  which  they 
have  represented  Cupid  in  their  mythology,  and  the  many 
beautiful  allegories  and  fictions  which  arose  out  of  their  idea 
of  the  childishness  of  love.  That  love  itself  was  in  the  age 
of  chivalry  one  of  the  most  violent  of  passions,  and  often  gave 
rise  to  the  most  daring  adventures,  and  the  most  tragical  ca- 
tastrophes, might  be  easily  gathered  from  the  general  cha- 
racter of  that  time.  The  histories  of  these  ages  are  full  of 
such  examples.  But  this  serious  and  passionate  side  of  love 
was  very  seldom  brought  forward  in  the  poems  of  the  age. 
These  are  not  indeed  so  destitute  of  all  illusions  to  the  senses 
as  the  Platonic  allegories  and  sonnets  of  Petrarch.  But 
even  in  this  respect  they  are  not  in  general  remarkable  for 
any  violent  expressions  of  feeling.  The  favourite,  almost  the 
exclusive  theme  of  these  poets,  was  that  view  of  the  passion 
which  opens  the  freest  space  for  the  exercise  of  the  fancy. 
From  that  high  estimation  of  the  female  sex  which  was  ori- 
ginally peculiar  to  the  Teutonic  nations,  after  it  had  been 
refined  and  exalted  by  the  milder  manner  and  loftier  mo- 


OF  EPIC  POETRY.  179 

rality  of  the  Christian  religion,  there  arose  a  systematic  ten- 
derness of  feeling  which  has  indeed  long  since  degenerated 
into  the  empty  forms  of  gallantry,  but  which,  so  long  as  it 
remained  in  possession  of  its  power,  was  the  fountain  of  every 
thing  noble  and  graceful  both  in  manners  and  in  poetry.  It 
was  at  least  in  some  degree  on  account  of  the  prevalence  of 
such  feelings  as  these,  that  the  German  poets  have  restrained 
themselves  from  filling  their  verses  with  ornaments  which 
were  certainly  very  much  within  their  reach.  The  Pro- 
vencial  court  and  laivs  of  love,  and  the  metaphysical  casu- 
istry which  was  elsewhere  so  unweariedly  employed  in  the 
solution  of  amatory  questions  and  problems,  were  never  in- 
troduced among  the  Germans.  Their  compositions  are  in- 
deed rude  and  unskilful  when  compared  with  those  of  the 
accomplished  and  meditative  Petrarch,  or  some  of  the  early 
poets  of  Castille  ;  but  in  return  they  possess  more  strength 
of  feeling,  and  manifest  greater  capacity  of  love  for  nature 
and  the  beautiful. 

Epic  poetry  belongs  altogether  to  the  world  which  had 
gone  before  us.  That  poet  of  any  refined  and  polished  age 
who  dares  to  be  a  poet  after  the  manner  of  the  minstrels  of 
antiquity — to  be  truly  epic — will  always  be  looked  upon  as 
a  remarkable  exception ;  he  will  be  honoured  and  reverenced 
by  all  posterity,  as  a  high  gift  of  nature  to  the  age  and  coun- 
try in  which  he  appears.  But  in  dramatic  poetry  art  main- 
tains her  pre-eminence ;  it  is  only  in  an  age  of  knowledge 
and  elegance  that  tragedies  and  comedies  can  be  written.  As 
youth  in  individuals  is  the  period  most  abounding  in  feeling, 
so  does  lyrical  poetry  flourish  most  in  the  youth  of  nations. 
The  age  of  Crusades  was  the  youth  of  modern  Europe.  It 
was  the  time  of  unsophisticated  feelings  and  ungovernable 
passions,  the  era  of  love,  war,  enthusiasm,  and  adventure. 

After  the  Crusades,  perhaps,  nothing  had  so  much  influ- 
ence in  giving  a  new  direction  to  the  imagination  of  the 
European  nations,  as  the  expeditions  of  the  Normans.  The 
foundations  of  chivalry  were  indeed  every  where  laid  in  the 
original  modes  of  thinking  of  all  the  Germanic  nations ;  the 
poetical  belief  in  the  wonderful,  in  gigantic  heroes,  in  moun- 
tain spirits,  mermaids,  elves,  and  dwarfish  sorcerers,  had 
every  where  kept  its  hold  in  the  imagination,  from  the  days 
of  the  old  mythology  of  the  North.     But  into  all  these  super- 


180  PROGRESS  OF  THE  SARACENS. 

stitions,  and  all  these  opinions,  a  new  life  was  infused  b}'-  the 
arrival  of  the  Normans.  They  were  fresh  from  the  North, 
and  had  breathed  in  its  original  purity  the  atmosphere  of 
poetry  and  chivalry.  Neither  did  they  lose  all  this  when 
they  became  converted  to  Christianity,  and  learned  to  speak 
French ;  their  character  had  strength  enough  not  only  to 
preserve  itself  unbroken,  but  to  diffuse  a  portion  of  its  influ- 
ence wherever  they  came ;  in  so  much  that  a  visible  change 
was  introduced  by  them  not  only  into  France,  but  into  the 
whole  of  Europe.  They  were  living  models  of  adventure 
and  enthusiasm;  they  conquered  England  and  Sicily,  and 
led  the  way  in  the  Crusades.  Their  whole  opinions  and 
Jives  were  poetic,  and  the  wonderful  was  the  perpetual  ob- 
ject of  all  their  worship  and  all  their  ambition.  It  Avas  by 
no  means  strange  that  the  history  of  Charlemagne  should 
have  peculiar  charms  for  the  Normans.  The  whole  of  it 
was  immediately  reduced  by  them  to  the  shape  of  chivalrous 
poetry.  The  battle  of  Roncesvalles,  in  which  the  army  of 
the  Franks  was  overcome  by  that  of  the  Arabs  and  Spaniards, 
and  in  which  Roland  died,  was  indeed,  as  it  stands  in  history, 
an  event  rather  unfortunate  than  glorious  for  the  Franks 
and  Charlemagne.  But  that,  in  spite  of  all  this,  the  celebra- 
tion of  this  battle  had  become  very  early  a  favourite  theme 
of  popular  poetry,  may  perhaps  be  accounted  for  in  this  way 
— that,  though  unfortunate  at  Roncesvalles,  Charlemagne 
was  in  the  end  successful,  in  setting  limits  to  the  progress  of 
the  Saracen  arms,  and  erecting  the  Pyrenees  into  an  impreg- 
nable bulwark  before  the  liberties  of  Europe.  The  religi- 
ous view  of  the  matter  also  might  not  be  without  its  influ- 
ence. Roland  fell  in  battle  with  the  enemies  of  our  faith ; 
and  although  vanquished  on  earth,  there  was  the  sure  crown 
of  victory  laid  up  for  him  in  heaven.  He  had  died  like  a 
hero  in  the  cause  of  God,  and  was  classed  by  the  multitude 
among  the  glorious  army  of  martyrs.  It  must  have  been 
on  some  such  principles  as  these,  that  the  famous  song  of 
Roland — used  in  battle  even  by  the  Normans  themselves — 
had  been  composed.  For  other Avise  the  death  of  an  unsuc- 
cessful hero  could  scarcely  have  been  selected  as  the  subject 
of  an  animating  war-song.  In  the  age  of  the  Crusades  the 
whole  history  of  Charlemagne,  the  battle  of  Roncesvalles, 
and  the  death  of  Roland,  were  represented  by  the  poets  as 


TRAVELS  OF  MARCO  POLO.  181 

scenes  of  a  religious  warfare.     An  example  for  the  knights 
and  adventurers  of  the  Crusades  was  shadowed  out  in  the 
glorious  names  and  achievements  of  Charles  and  his  Pala- 
dines ;  nay,  so  far  were  things  carried,  that  a  fabulous  Cru- 
sade in  the  ninth  century  was  invented  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  ascribing  it  to  Charlemagne.     The  authentic  history 
of  the  great  Frankish  Emperor  soon  became  scarcely  re- 
cognizeable  under  the  disguise  which  it  assumed — in  the 
midst  of  sultans,  magicians,  genii,  and  all  the  fables  of  the 
East.     By  and  by  comical  characters  and  adventures  began 
to  be  mingled  with  the  rest.     In  process  of  time,  the  oral 
narratives  of  the  Crusades  supplied  the  West  with  a  copious 
assortment  of  oriental  fictions ;  and  above  all,  men  read  the 
travels  of  Marco  Polo,  (a  production  whose  impudent  ex- 
aggerations procured  for  its  author  the  name  of  Messer  Mil- 
lione;)  the  consequence  was,  that  there  was  nothing  of  the 
marvellous  to  be  seen  or  imagined   between   China  and 
Morocco  which  did  not  somehow  or  other  find  its  niche  in 
the  poetry  which  treated  of  Charlemagne  and  Roland.    That 
poetry  lost  all  trace  of  the  true  achievements  and  wars  of 
Charlemagne,  (which  in  their  original  shape  might  have 
furnished  excellent  materials  for  a  serious  heroic  poem,)  and 
came  to  be  considered  merely  as  a  form  or  vehicle  wherein 
all  possible  fictions  might  be  fairly  introduced ;  and  where 
the  fancy  might  practise  her  boldest  gambols  in  the  world 
of  wonders  and  impossibilities.     Such  is  the  shape  in  which 
it  appears  in  the  writings  of  Ariosto.     This  great  genius, 
confiding  solely  in  the  magic  of  his  language  and  narrative, 
has  ventured  to  make  his  poem  as  irregular  as  his  materials 
were  heterogeneous;    he  is  continually  breaking  off  one 
story  and  commencing  another ;  he  scatters  over  every  thing 
a  sparkling  of  wit,  comedy,  and  satire.     He  is  the  most  in- 
imitable of  all  poets. 

16 


hrary* 

California- 


LECTURE  VIII. 


THIRD  SET  OF  CHIVALROUS   POEMS — ARTHUR  AND  THE   ROUND  TABLE — IN- 
FLUENCE   OF   THE    CRUSADES    AND    THE    EAST    ON    THE    POETRY  OF   THE 

WEST ARABIC  AND  PERSIAN  POEMS FERDUSI LAST  REMODELLING  OF 

THE    NIBELUNGEN-LIED WOLKRAM    VON    ESCHENBACH,    TRUE    PURPOSE 

OF   THE    GOTHIC    ARCHITECTURE LATER    POESY    OF    THE    CHIVALROUS 

PERIOD POEM  OF  THE  CID. 


There  are  three  different  sets  of  fables  and  histories  from 
which  the  subjects  of  the  chivalrous  poems  of  the  middle 
age  are  principally  taken.  The  first  of  these  consists  in  the 
legends  of  Gothic,  Prankish,  and  Burgundian  heroes,  dur- 
ing the  times  of  the  great  northern  emigrations ;  these  form 
the  subjects  of  the  Nibelungen-lied,  and  of  those  fragments 
which  are  collected  together  under  the  name  of  the  Helden- 
buch. For  this  set  of  heroic  legends  there  is  in  general 
some  foundation  in  history ;  they  all  breathe  the  pure  noith- 
ern  spirit,  are  closely  connected  with  the  traditions  of  the  old 
heathenish  antiquity  and  mythology  of  the  Gothic  nations, 
and  have  for  the  most  part  been  celebrated  in  the  Scandina- 
vian as  well  as  in  the  German  dialects.  The  second  great 
subject  of  chivalrous  poetry  is  Charlemagne — ^more  particu- 
larly his  war  against  the  Saracens,  his  defeat  at  Roncesvalles, 
and  the  achievements  of  his  Paladins.  The  narratives  which 
treat  of  these  are  in  general  very  far  removed  from  all  his- 
torical truth ;  the  active  Frankish  hero  is  transformed  in  them 
into  a  mere  indolent  monarch,  after  the  fashion  of  the  eastern 
sultans, — a  mistake  which  is  probably  to  be  accounted  for 
by  the  circumstance  of  the  chief  poems  concerning  Charle- 
magne having  been  composed  by  Normans,  who  pretty  na- 
turally imagined  that  great  and  warlike  prince  to  have  been, 
with  all  the  glory  which  surrounded  him,  something  not 
very  unlike  the  monarchs  whom  they  themselves  found  in 
possession  of  his  throne.     However  this  might  have  been,  it 


CHIVALROUS  POEMS.  183 

is  certain  that  the  poetical  histories  of  Charlemagne  became 
very  soon  intermingled  with  a  large  proportion  of  incidents 
purely  comic,  and  altogether  covered  over  with  a  veil  of  ab- 
surd and  fantastic  machinery,  through  which  the  original 
fects  cannot,  without  great  difficulty,  be  recognized.  The 
fate  of  the  third  set  of  chivalrous  topics — King  Authur  and 
the  Round  Table — was  not  very  different  from  that  of  the 
second.  The  original  groundwork  of  history  became  soon 
very  nearly  undiscernible  from  the  clothing  of  oriental  mar- 
vels— Crusades,  and  Indian  achievements — which  was  heap- 
ed upon  it.  The  historical  Arthur,  a  Christian  king  of 
Britain,  of  the  Celtic  race,  and  his  wars  with  the  first  hea- 
thenish Saxon  invaders  of  England,  could  have  furnished, 
indeed,  a  very  limited  range  for  poetical  embellishment.  But 
the  very  narrowness  of  the  field  was  the  cause  of  its  unpa- 
ralleled richness  of  cultivation;  and  the  poets  made  ample 
amends  for  the  original  insignificance  of  Arthur,  by  invest- 
ing him  in  their  fictions  with  all  the  attributes  of  perfect 
chivalry.  He  is  the  ideal  of  a  knight,  and  all  the  poems 
which  treat  of  him  and  his  period,  have  more  real  object 
and  purpose  than  those  concerning  Charlemagne  and  his 
Paladins.  With  the  history  of  Authur  there  are  besides  in- 
terwoven many  engaging  poems,  in  which  love  is  depicted 
in  the  most  beautiful  incidents  of  the  chivalrous  life.  Of 
these  the  most  remarkable  is  throughout  of  an  elegiac  cha- 
racter, as  might  be  gathered  from  the  name  itself  of  T^-is- 
tram.  The  tenderness  of  this  elegiac  colouring  is  well 
adapted  to  the  nature  of  such  a  narrative ;  it  harmonizes  well 
with  those  feelings  of  darkness,  depression,  and  perplexity, 
which  rush  into  every  mind,  where  we  are  drawn  to  survey 
the  spectacle  of  a  heroic  life — when  we  reflect  on  the  fleet- 
ingness of  youth,  beauty,  valour,  and  the  at  best  perishable 
and  unsatisfactory  nature  of  all  earthly  glories  and  enjoy- 
ments. The  poetical  clothing  of  the  marvellous  and  the 
chivalrous,  under  which  the  fate  of  love  is  represented,  has 
the  effect  of  at  once  beautifying  the  fiction,  and  ennobling 
the  feeling.  It  is  in  vain  that  modern  poets,  imprisoned  as 
they  are  within  a  world  of  present  and  prosaic  realities,  en- 
deavour to  atone  for  the  want  of  poetry  by  a  display  of  na- 
tural and  moral  knowledge,  and  the  wiredrawn  minuteness 
of  psychology.     Not  many  learn  to  know  either  the  world 


184         AUTHUR  AND  HIS  ROUND  TABLE. 

or  man  out  of  books.  The  true  end  of  poetry  is  to  awaken 
or  restore  aspirations  and  feelings  which  are  the  poetry  of 
nature ;  and  by  setting  all  things  in  the  most  beautiful  light, 
and  investing  all  things  with  loveliness  and  magic,  not  so 
much  to  ennoble  or  exalt  our  feelings,  as  to  preserve  and 
sustain  them  in  their  natural  element  of  beauty.  Among  all 
the  great  and  epic  poems  of  love  and  chivalry  in  the  middle 
age,  the  first  place  is  given  by  all  nations  to  Tristram ;  but 
that  we  may  not  be  fatigued  by  xmiformity  of  fiction,  the 
airy  and  lively  legend  of  Launcelot  is  placed  by  the  side  of 
its  more  grave  and  elegiac  representations. 

But  besides  all  this,  the  poetical  historians  of  Arthur  and 
his  Round  Table  had  an  altogether  different  object  in  their 
view.  They  endeavoured,  under  the  form  of  Arthur  and 
his  knights,  (in  whom  was  supposed  to  be  represented  the 
perfection  of  all  chivalrous  virtue,)  to  shadow  forth  the  idea 
of  a  spiritual  knighthood,  true,  like  that  other  chivalry,  to 
the  obligations  of  a  solemn  vow,  proving  itself  like  it  by 
achievement  and  by  suffering,  and  rising  like  it,  by  slow  and 
gradual  advances,  to  the  summit  of  its  perfection.  This  idea, 
however,  is  not  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  external  rules  of 
their  fiction,  or  to  make  them  sacrifice  any  of  those  adven- 
tures and  wonders  of  love  and  war  in  the  east  and  the  west, 
from  which  the  poetry  of  those  days  derived  its  most  favour- 
ite embellishments.  Under  the  name  of  St.  Graal  there  is 
brought  together  a  whole  train  of  such  allegorical  deeds  of 
chivalry ;  the  knight  is  represented  as  labouring,  by  inces- 
sant exertions,  to  make  himself  worthy  of  gaining  access  to 
the  holy  places,  and  the  deliverance  of  these  is  supposed  to 
be  the  highest  end  of  his  calling.  And  yet  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  in  all  these  poems  the  object  was  not 
merely  to  shadow  out  a  spiritual  and  allegorical  chivalry, 
but  also  to  embody  the  peculiar  ideas  of  a  spiritual  and  yet 
a  real  chivalry,  which  was  then  in  all  its  glory — the  chi- 
valry of  the  religious  orders  of  knighthood,  such  as  the 
Templars  and  the  Knights  of  St.  John.  In  a  historical  point 
of  view,  this  may  be  of  no  inconsiderable  importance.  Les- 
sing,  the  first,  so  far  as  I  know,  who  started  the  idea,  was 
one  well  qualified,  both  by  his  erudition  and  his  judgment, 
to  form  a  proper  opinion  on  such  a  subject;  and  they  who 
are  familiar  with  such  topics  will,  I  imagine,  have  no  diffi- 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  CRUSADES.  185 

culty  in  agreeing  with  him,  provided  they  read  again  these 
old  poems  with  a  view  to  this  particular  consideration.  The 
purpose  is  indeed  sufficiently  manifest  even  in  the  French 
romances  of  St.  Graal,  but  infinitely  more  so  in  the  more 
elaborate  productions  of  the  Germans. 

This  third  set  of  fables,  then,  that  relating  to  King 
Arthur  and  the  Round  Table,  had  a  peculiar,  sometimes  a 
doubly,  allegorical  character  of  their  own.  But  when  I 
said  that  this  set  of  fables,  along  with  those  of  the  Nibelun- 
gen and  of  Charlemagne,  formed  the  only  subjects  of  the 
poetry  of  the  middle  age,  I  perhaps  expressed  myself  rather 
too  strongly.  A  crowd  of  other  fictions  diverge  in  all  points 
from  these ;  they  formed  only  the  centre  point  and  kernel  of 
the  imagination.  I  must  now,  however,  go  on  to  consider 
under  what  varieties  of  shape  this  chivalrous  poetry  appeared 
among  all  the  different  European  nations,  how  long  it  lasted, 
by  what  gradations  it  gradually  lost  in  each  country  its  ori- 
ginal character  and  destination,  and  in  particular  by  what 
circumstarices  it  so  happened  that  in  almost  no  instance  did 
it  ever  reach  that  degree  of  skilful  beauty  and  development 
of  which  it  might  every  where  have  been  susceptible.  But 
before  I  proceed  to  this,  I  must  pause  to  say  a  single  word 
concerning  the  influence  of  the  Crusades  on  the  poetry  of 
the  West;  and,  above  all,  to  direct  your  attention  to  the 
share  of  that  influence  which  originally  belonged  to  the  po- 
etry of  the  East. 

The  chief  elements  of  all  this  influence  were,  without 
doubt,  no  other  than  the  incidents  of  the  Crusades  them- 
selves, and  the  power  which  the  spirit  in  which  their  expe- 
ditions were  undertaken  must  at  all  times  have  had  of  arou- 
sing the  imagination.  The  achievements  of  Godfrey  of 
Bouillon  were  sung  in  the  very  time  in  which  they  took 
place,  and  had  no  need  of  the  mystery  of  ages  in  order  to 
make  them  poetical.  But  the  poets  were,  no  doubt,  more 
partial  to  the  fabulous  histories  of  Charlemagne  and  Ar- 
thur, because  they  were  well  aware  that  the  more  distant 
their  scene  was  laid,  the  more  room  had  they  for  the  exer- 
cise of  their  fancy. 

The  influence  exerted  on  Europe  by  the  poetry  of  the 
East,  made  known  through  the  Crusades,  was  very  incon- 
siderable in  comparison  with  what  we  generally  suppose  it 

16* 


186  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  WEST. 

to  have  been ;  and  that  which  really  did  exist  belonged  in 
the  greatest  part — almost  exclusively — ^to  the  Persians,  not 
the  Arabians.  Among  all  the  works  of  oriental  flection, 
there  are  two  in  particular  which  contain  within  themselves 
the  best  specimens  of  oriental  fancy,  and  enable  us  at  once 
to  perceive  in  what  this  influence  consisted,  and  what  sort  of 
spirit  that  was  which  was  either  first  introduced  into  Eu- 
rope, or  which,  at  least,  augmented  the  originally  kindred 
spirit  of  northern  poetry,  by  means  of  the  Crusades.  The 
"  Tales  of  a  Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  an  Arabian  col- 
lection of  fantastic  narratives,  and  the  Persian  heroic  poetry 
of  Ferdusi,  who  has  been  called  at  one  time  the  Homer,  at 
another  the  Ariosto  of  the  East. 

The  elder  poetry  of  the  Arabs  before  Mahomet,  consisted, 
so  far  as  we  know,  of  lyrical  heroic  songs,  which,  without 
making  use  of  any  peculiar  mythology,  simply  celebrated 
warlike  deeds,  or  the  feelings  of  love — generally  the  fame 
of  some  individual  hero  and  his  ancestry.  The  spirit  of 
pedigree  formed  almost  the  soul  of  the  inspiration,  and  all 
the  enthusiasm  and  zeal  of  the  poet's  imagination  were  ex- 
erted for  the  purposes  of  extolling  the  achievements  of  some 
one  race,  and  undervaluing  those  of  its  rivals.  And  this  is 
done  with  the  same  profusion  of  moral  maxims  and  fanciful 
conceits  which  was  so  much  in  fashion  all  over  the  East. 
But  in  this  old  Arabian  poetry  there  is  to  be  found  no  pe- 
culiar mythology,  no  such  world  of  fiction  concerning  gods. 
and  heroes,  and  spirits,  and  the  mighty  struggles  of  the  won- 
derful powers  of  nature,  as  is  to  be  found  either  among  the 
Greeks  or  the  Persians,  or  in  the  poetical  theology  of  the 
northern  Scalds.  Their  poetry,  moreover,  is  so  very  local, 
that,  so  far  from  being  capable  of  being  transplanted  into 
other  regions,  in  order  to  understand  it  perfectly,  we  ought 
to  become  profoundly  versant  in  all  the  genealogies  of  the 
Arabs.  In  its  want  of  any  peculiar  mythology,  and  in  the 
circumstance  of  its  being  entirely  dedicated  to  the  fame,  tra- 
ditions, relations,  and  opinions  of  a  feAv  particular  families  of 
Arabian  nobility,  this  Arabic  poetry  bears  a  great  resem- 
blance to  the  Ossianic.  There  is,  however,  this  great  difl^e- 
rence,  that  in  the  Ossianic  poems  there  prevails  that  tone  of 
lamentation  which  might  be  supposed  to  be  most  in  harmony 
with  the  feelings  of  a  vanquished,  depressed,  and  almost  ex- 


THE  ANCIENT  ARABS.  187 

piling  people, — or,  if  we  prefer  another  explanation,  of  a 
people  inhabiting  the  desolate  borders  of  the  Northern  Ocean, 
and  saddened  by  the  cold  mists  and  vapours  of  that  dreary- 
region.  In  the  Arabian  songs,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
breathes  such  a  spirit  of  joy,  pride,  and  valour,  as  might  suit 
a  victorious  nation  and  a  burning  climate.  The  hostile  tribes 
are  here  spoken  of  not  with  sorrows  and  lamentations,  but 
scorn  and  hatred. ..  The  great  disadvantage  of  such  poetry 
consists  in  its  locality ;  it  is  an  heir-loom,  and  cannot  pass 
from  its  seat ;  while,  on  the  contrary,  the  fictions  of  a  more 
mythological  system  of  legends  are  easily  transmitted  from 
one  people  to  another,  and  find  many  points  of  resemblance 
and  coincidence  among  every  nation  which  is  so  fortunate  as 
to  have  any  similar  possessions. 

To  shew  how  far  a  poetical  mythology  was  removed  from 
the  spirit  of  the  ancient  Arabs,  I  need  only  refer  you  to  a 
well  known  incident  in  the  life  of  Mahomet.  It  seems  that 
an  Arab  brought  to  Mecca  the  Persian  heroic  histories  of 
Iskendar*  and  some  other  of  the  heroes  of  ancient  days. 
These  were  received  with  much  interest,  being-  somethingf 
altogether  new  and  unknown.  But  Mahomet  put  a  stop  to 
the  progress  they  were  making,  in  the  fear  that  his  own 
poetry  and  his  own  purposes  might  be  injured  by  their  po- 
pularity. 

That  the  Arabs,  however,  contracted,  during  the  subsist- 
ence of  their  Asiatic  empire,  a  strong  passion  for  the  magical 
personages  of  the  Persian  poetry,  is  evident  from  the  work 
to  which  I  have  already  alluded, — The  Arabian  Tales. 
That  many  of  these  very  tales,  indeed,  and  in  particular 
such  of  them  as  are  most  filled  with  wonders  and  fancies, 
are  not  genuine  old  fictions  of  Arabian  growth,  but  rather 
oelong  to  the  poetry  of  Persia,  and  in  part  probably  to  that 
of  India — this  has  been  long  since  acknowledged  by  all 
great  orientalists.  But  if  the  Arabs,  previous  to  their  inter- 
course with  Persia,  really  possessed  any  original  and  culti- 
vated chivalrous  poetry  of  their  own,  besides  those  old 
lyrical  ^^  Tribe  Songs'^  of  which  I  have  spoken,  that  is  a 
circumstance  of  which  the  world  has  as  yet  seen  no  proof 

Elves  and  mandrakes,  mountain  spirits,  mermaids,  giants, 

*  Alexander  the  Great. 


188  ARAB  LITERATURE. 

dwarfs,  and  dragons,  were  all  known  in  the  northern  my- 
thology long-  before  the  period  of  the  Crusades.  These 
were  not  things  borrowed,  but  only  traces  of  the  old  original 
identity  of  the  northern  and  the  Persian  superstitions.  All 
that  the  western  poetry  owed  to  that  of  the  east,  with  regard 
to  these  particulars,  consisted  in  a  certain  southern  magic, 
and  oriental  brilliancy  of  fancy,  with  which  these  familiar 
forms  came  about  this  time  to  be  invested.  But  the  kin- 
dred spirit  of  the  two  mythologies  was  manifested  by  an- 
other and  a  still  more  important  circumstance.  The  Per- 
sian Book  of  Heroes,  in  which  the  poet  Ferdusi,  about  the 
beginning  of  the  eleventh  century  of  our  era,  collected  to- 
gether all  the  legends  and  histories  of  the  Persian  kings  and 
warriors,  and  celebrated  them  in  the  purest  and  most  beau- 
tiful language  of  his  country,  and  threw  around  them  a 
blaze  of  fancy  which  has  procured  for  him  his  name  of  The 
Paradisaic,  —  this  book  is  deserving  of  great  attention, 
even  when  considered  merely  as  a  repository  of  mytho- 
logical learning.  The  reign  of  Dschemschid  is  represented 
at  the  beginning  of  the  poem  as  having  been  the  golden  age 
of  the  kingdom  of  Persia,  and  of  the  whole  Asiatic  world. 
Dschemschid  himself  is  clothed  with  all  the  attributes  of 
wisdom  and  victory,  and  appears  like  a  bright  image  of  the 
Eternal  upon  the  earth.  But  after  many  happy  centuries,  when 
the  Sun  of  Righteousness  becomes  darkened,  and  this  best  of 
monarchs  falls  in  the  fullness  of  his  glory,  the  Land  of 
Light  becomes  exposed  to  the  ravages  of  its  enemies.  The 
contest  betwixt  Iran  and  Turan, — the  Holy  Land  of  Light, 
and  the  Wild  Region  of  Darkness — is  from  this  time  the 
centre-point  of  all  subsequent  fictions.  In  the  victory  of  the 
great  Feridun  over  the  wicked  Zobak,  and  his  later  more 
unfortunate  contest  with  the  fiend-like  Afrasiab;  in  the 
government  which  this  evil  spirit  establishes,  and  the  dark- 
ness with  Avhich  the  whole  empire  is  now  invested,  till  at 
length,  after  a  long  series  of  adventures,  Afrasiab  is  con- 
quered by  King  Chosru,  the  proper  historical  founder  of 
the  Persian  kingdom — in  all  these  fictions,  however  strange 
and  diversified,  we  can  still  perceive,  under  the  guise  of  he- 
roic legends,  a  perpetual  adherence  to  the  old  Persian  ideas 
concerning  the  contest  between  light  and  darkness.  The 
same  spirit  breathes  in  all  their  other  poems,  and  the  same 


THE  CHRISTIAN  AND  PERSIAN  SYSTEMS.  189 

adherence  is  every  where  perceptible.  Now  there  is  no 
question  that  a  very  similar  set  of  ideas,  respecting  the  con- 
test of  light  and  darkness,  (ideas  to  which,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered, the  Greeks  had  nothing  parallel,)  were  extremely 
prevalent  in  Europe  during  the  middle  ages ;  I  might  al- 
most say  that  they  were  the  ruling  ideas  there,  from  the 
moment  when  the  influence  of  the  poetry  and  allegories  of 
the  Scriptures  began  to  be  felt.  The  only  difference  between 
the  Christian  and  the  Persian  systems,  with  regard  to  the 
perpetual  contest  between  light  and  darkness,  consists  in 
this,  that  in  the  former,  the  good  Deity  is  lifted  high  above 
all  competition  with  his  enemy;  while  in  the  latter,  the 
good  and  the  evil  principles  are  represented  as  being  origin- 
ally distinct  and  independent  powers.  But  all  this  lies  in  a 
higher  region ;  the  distinction  is  just  and  great,  but  it  is, 
after  all,  merely  metaphysical,  Christianity  recognises  in 
the  world  of  the  senses  and  in  the  world  of  spirits,  in  nature 
and  in  man,  the  perpetual  opposition  of  the  good  and  the 
evil — the  unceasing  struggle  between  light  and  darkness — 
and  this  forms  the  true  essence  of  all  the  maxims,  emblems, 
and  allegories  of  our  religion.  We  may  adopt  what  opinion 
we  will  concerning  the  origin  of  all  these  resemblances, — 
we  may  view  them  either  as  produced  by  the  general  iden- 
tity of  human  reason,  or  as  the  result  of  simple  and  unques- 
tioning imitation ;  it  is  evident,  that  from  whatever  source 
the  coincidence  arose,  it  must  have  naturally  given  rise  to  a 
kindred  set  of  imaginations  and  opinions,  and  to  a  kin- 
dred spirit  of  poetry  in  the  two  peoples  among  whom  it 
was  found. 

The  later  romantic  poems  of  the  Persians,  such  as  Mei- 
nun  and  Leila,  Chosru  and  Schirin,  belong  to  a  species  of 
composition  altogether  unknown  among  the  ancients,  and 
have  a  strong  resemblance  to  our  European  poems  of  love 
and  chivalry  in  the  middle  ages.  Yet  the  flowery  and  fan- 
tastic character  of  the  oriental  imagination  has,  of  course, 
kept  them  very  far  asunder  from  any  European  writings,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  still  more  important  difference  occa- 
sioned by  the  mode  in  which  love  and  every  thing  like 
moral  feeling  are  treated  by  men  brought  up  in  the  customs 
of  the  East, 

If  we  compare  the  old  French  tales  and  fabliaux  with  the 


190  PERSIAN  LITERATURE. 

Arabian  tales,  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  perceiving  that 
the  greater  part  of  these  fictions  had  been  brought  from  the 
East  into  Europe,  in  a  great  measure,  it  is  probable,  by  the 
oral  narratives  of  the  Crusaders.  The  small  variations 
which  have  been  introduced,  and  the  colouring  of  European 
manners  which  has  so  carefully  been  thrown  over  them, 
cannot  conceal  the  identity  of  the  inventions.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  by  no  means  unlikely  that  there  was  a  reaction  in 
the  case,  and  that  in  those  days  of  unexampled  intercourse 
between  the  East  and  the  West,  many  European  novels 
may  have  found  their  way  to  the  professional  story-tellers  of 
the  orientals.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  we  ever  bor- 
rowed any  entire  heroic  fictions  from  oriental  sources ;  even 
the  fabulous  history  of  Alexander,  although  the  adventures 
of  the  Macedonian  form  the  subject  of  one  of  the  best  of  the 
Persian  romances,  Avas  not  derived  to  us  from  that  quarter, 
but  from  a  Greek  book  of  popular  legends,  and  the  clothing 
of  chivalrous  manners,  Avith  which  the  fiction  was  afterwards 
invested,  belonged  exclusively  to  ourselves.  Something 
similar  occurred  in  regard  to  our  old  legends  of  the  wars  of 
Troy ;  we  derived  in  like  manner  our  ideas  concerning  the 
events  of  that  period,  not  from  the  great  poets  of  antiquity, 
but  from  another  popular  book  of  the  same  class.  Our  oAvn 
age,  which  is  so  rich  in  all  historical  knowledge,  and  which 
holds  the  first  place  in  every  species  of  elaborate  imitation, 
may  indeed  look  down  with  great  contempt  on  such  rude 
and  childish  attempts  as  these  poems  which  represent  the 
siege  of  Troy,  and  other  matters  of  antiquity,  under  the  dis- 
guise of  chivalrous  manners.  That  dark  age,  nevertheless, 
however  great  may  have  been  its  inferiority  to  our  own  time 
in  every  other  respect,  was  certainly  not  without  some  ad- 
vantage over  us  in  regard  to  its  comprehension  of  the  cha- 
racter, although  not  of  the  costume,  of  the  earlier  ages  of 
antiquity.  The  middle  age  was  the  heroic  age  of  Christen- 
dom, and  in  the  heroic  legends  of  the  Greeks  there  is  much 
that  may  recall  even  to  us  the  manners  of  chivalry.  Tan- 
cred  and  Richard,  surrounded  with  their  minstrels  and  trou- 
badours, stood  in  many  respects  in  a  much  nearer  relation  to 
Hector  and  Achilles,  and  the  Trojan  rhapsodists,  than  the 
field  marshals  and  poets  of  a  later  and  more  cultivated  gen- 
eration.    The  achievements  of  Alexander  were  made  the 


J 


THE  HEROIC  AGE.  191 

favourite  theme  of  the  romancers,  merely  because  they,  of 
all  historical  incidents,  even  without  fictitious  embellishment, 
bear  the  greatest  resemblance  to  heroic  traditions,  and  be- 
cause the  marvellous  which  they  contain  is  above  all  the 
true  wonders  of  other  conquerors,  akin  to  that  marvellous, 
which  is  the  delight  of  poets. 

But  the  approximation  of  East  and  West  was  not  the 
only  approximation  caused  by  the  Crusades.  The  nations 
of  the  West  themselves  were  brought  into  closer  contact 
with  each  other  than  they  had  ever  before  experienced,  and 
the  fictions  of  all  ages  and  all  countries  became  inextrica- 
bly mingled  and  confounded.  This  chaotic  mixture  was 
in  the  end  the  chief  cause  why  all  the  best,  the  most  touch- 
ing, and  the  most  peculiar  of  the  European  heroic  legends, 
dissolved  themselves  into  mere  play  of  fancy,  and  lost  all 
traces  of  that  historical  truth  upon  which  they  had  originally 
been  established. 

With  regard  to  the  whole  body  of  romantic  fictions  still 
extant,  whether  connected  or  unconnected  with  the  great 
subjects  of  the  poetry  of  the  middle  age, — even  with  regard 
to  those  which  are  founded  in  part  on  true  events,  I  know 
only  one  common  standard  of  criticism.  Their  value  is  al- 
ways so  much  the  higher  in  proportion  as  they  are  more 
dependent  on  a  historical  foundation,  more  national  in  their 
import  and  character,  and  more  abounding  in  a  free,  natural, 
and  unaffected  display  of  imagination, — above  all,  in  pro- 
portion as  they  are  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  love.  I  do  not 
allude  merely  to  a  mild,  beautifying,  and,  at  the  same  time 
amiable  mode  of  treating  every  thing  that  is  represented,  but 
rather  to  that  spirit  which  forms  the  essential  mark  of  dis- 
tinction between  the  fictions  of  Christendom  and  all  other 
fictions ;  which,  where  a  tragical  catastrophe  is  either  in- 
separable from  the  nature  of  the  subject,  or  introduced  on 
purpose  by  the  poet,  never  allows  us  to  close  with  the  single 
feeling  of  destruction,  oppression,  or  an  inevitable  fate — 
which  bids  the  victim  of  sorrows  and  death  rise  to  a  higher 
life  with  a  more  glorious  presence,  and  offers  to  him  who  is 
overcome  by  earthly  enemies  or  afflictions,  the  sure  prospect 
of  a  recompense  for  all  his  endurance — a  crown  of  victory 
in  the  heavens. 

I  shall  now  direct  your  attention  to  the  farther  develop- 


192  POETRY  OF  THE  GERMANS. 

merit  of  the  chivalrous  poetry,  or  rather  to  its  speedy  corrup- 
tion and  decline  among  the  most  illustrious  of  European 
nations,  down  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation ;  and  I  shall 
begin  with  Germany,  because  its  literature  of  this  age  and 
species,  although  not  the  most  rich,  is  at  least  the  best 
kno\\'n.  I  shall  postpone  to  the  end  my  consideration  of 
the  Italian  literature  of  this  period,  because  the  spirit  of  chi- 
valry had  at  no  time  much  dominion  or  influence  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Alps,  where  a  peculiar  set  of  tastes  and 
opinions,  all  leaning  towards  the  antique,  had,  even  at  this 
early  period,  begun  to  obtain  an  entire  supremacy. 

The  proper  awakening  and  spring  of  the  present  language 
and  poetry  of  the  Germans  commenced  about  the  time  of 
Frederick  the  First,  in  the  twelfth  century.     The  first  flou- 
rishing period  was  already  over  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  but  a  similar  sort  of  poetry  continued  to 
be  cultivated,  and  the  language  continued  to  be  treated  after 
the  same  manner,  down  to  the  reign  of  Maximilian.    From 
that  time  the  prose  Avriting  was  becoming  daily  more  pol- 
ished, but  the  art  of  versifying  was  ever  on  the  decline,  and 
the  language  of  poetry  retrograding  into  rudeness  and  bar- 
barity— down  to  the  commencement  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, when,  in  consequence  of  the  universal  shaking  and 
disturbance  of  ideas,  there  took  place  a  total  change  in  the 
language,  which  now  forms  a  complete  wall  of  separation 
between  us  and  the  old  German  taste  in  language  and  poe- 
try.    Before  the  time  of  Barbarossa,  that  culture,  by  which 
Germany  was  so  much  distinguished  in  the  days  of  the 
Saxon  and  earliest  Frankish  emperors,  was,  nevertheless, 
rather  a  Latin  culture  than  a  Teutonic.     It  could  scarcely, 
indeed,  have  been  otherwise  in  the  seat  of  the  Imperial  Court 
itself;  for  that  formed  the  centre-point  by  which  not  only 
Germany,  but  the  half  of  Italy,  the  half  Romanic-Lotharin- 
gia,  and  the  almost  entirely  Romanic  Burgundy,  were  gov- 
erned and  united ;  it  formed  also  the  scene  of  almost  all  the 
political  negociations  of  Europe ;  and,  in  short,  the  universal 
language — the  Latin — was  here  an  instrument  of  the  near- 
est and  the  most  indispensable  necessity.    The  same  circum- 
stances furnish  us  with  an  easy  explanation  how  it  happened 
that  some  of  the  emperors  themselves,  whose  afl!airs  must 
have  frequently  occasioned  them  to  be  long  absent  from 


VIEW  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  193 

Germany,  composed  poems  in  the  Romanic  dialects ; — I  al- 
lude, in  particular,  to  certain  princes  of  the  house  of  Hohen- 
staufen,  some  of  whom,  however,  were  also  poets  in  their 
native  language.  The  need  of  a  common  language  of  busi- 
ness was  indeed  sufficiently  felt  even  within  Germany  itself; 
where,  in  addition  to  all  the  native  dialects — at  that  time 
still  extremely  separate — (such  as  the  North  Dutch  and  the 
South  Dutch,  the  Saxon,  and  the  Alemannic) — there  existed 
a  very  considerable  population  whose  language  was  Sclavo- 
nic. With  regard  to  the  great  improvement  which  appears 
in  the  German  language  during  the  reign  of  the  first  Fred- 
erick, I  imagine  this  was  produced,  not  so  much  by  any 
immediate  exertion  or  patronage  of  that  monarch  himself, 
as  by  the  general  circumstances  of  the  time.  Germany  be- 
gan about  that  period  to  abound,  more  than  ever,  in  petty 
princes — sovereigns  whose  dominions  were  too  insignificant 
to  occupy  the  whole  of  their  attention,  and  who  therefore 
were  at  full  leisure  to  think  of  procuring  for  their  courts  the 
ornaments  of  music,  poetry,  and  the  arts.  These  were  the 
real  patrons  of  German  literature.  It  was  thus  that  such 
assemblages  of  poets  and  minstrels  were  collected  around 
the  courts  of  the  landgraves  of  Thuringia,  and  still  more  of 
the  Austrian  Babenbergs.  I  have  little  doubt,  that  from 
some  one  of  these  poets,  resident  in  Austria,  the  Nibelungen- 
lied received  that  form  in  which  we  now  see  it.  Not  only 
by  the  minuteness  of  his  local  knowledge,  but  also  by  his 
partiality  for  Austrian  heroes,  are  the  country  and  residence 
of  the  poet  betrayed.  He  goes  out  of  his  way  to  introduce, 
by  a  bold  anachronism,  the  Margrave  Rüdiger — the  favou- 
rite hero  of  the  Austrians.  Even  the  advantageous  manner 
in  Avhich  Attila  is  depicted,  may  be  accounted  for  somewhat 
in  the  same  way ;  for  many  traditions  concerning  his  achieve- 
ments have  been  at  all  times  preserved  among  the  Hunga- 
rians; and  as  these  had  such  a  close  political  connection 
with  Austria,  it  may  be  supposed  that  Attila  came  to  be 
considered  with  some  degree  of  partiality,  even  among  the 
natives  ofthat  country.  When  the  Margrave  assures  Chriem- 
bild,  who  is  desirous  of  espousing  a  heathen  maiden,  that 
"  many  Christian  knights  and  lords  have  their  dwelling  in 
the  court  of  Attila,"  he  says  nothing  but  what  is  perfectly 
consistent   with   historical   truth.      But  it  is  impossible  to 

17 


194  CHIVALROUS  FICTIONS. 

avoid  being  a  little  amused  with  another  passage,  in  which 
it  is  said,  that  in  Attila's  court  men  lived  either  according  to 
Christian  or  Pagan  customs,  as  it  pleased  them ;  for  that  the 
prince  knew  no  rule  of  favour,  but  rewarded  all  men  accord- 
insf  to  the  valour  of  their  achievements,  and  the  virtue  of 
their  lives.  So  strange  is  the  perversity  of  fiction !  The 
warlike  and  indefatigable  Charlemagne  we  have  already 
seen  represented  as  an  indolent  and  luxurious  sultan ;  and 
now  we  see  the  conquering  and  cruel  Attila  transformed 
into  the  likeness  of  a  mild,  magnanimous,  and  tolerating 
monarch. 

The  last  edition  of  the  Nibelungen-lied  may,  I  think,  be 
placed,  with  great  probability,  in  the  reign  of  Leopold  the 
Glorious,  the  last  but  one  of  the  princes  of  the  house  of 
Babenberg ;  and  if  we  are  anxious  that  the  author  of  such 
a  poem  should  not  be  left  without  a  name,  and  insist  upon 
connecting  it  with  that  of  some  well  known  genius,  it  is,  I 
think,  highly  probable,  that  the  poet  was  no  other  than 
Henry  Von  Ofterdingen,  who  was  a  native  of  Thuringia, 
but  had  his  residence  in  Austria. 

This  work  is  not  only  the  most  excellent  of  its  time  in 
respect  of  language ;  its  internal  structure  is  also  extremely 
regular  and  masterly.  It  has  an  almost  dramatic  conclu- 
sion, and  is  divided  into  six  books :  these  again  are  subdi- 
vided into  smaller  sections,  cantos,  or  rhapsodies,  with  a 
view,  it  is  probable,  to  oral  recitation  or  singing.  The  poet 
must  have  adhered  with  great  fidelity  to  his  ancient  authori- 
ties ;  for  it  is  remarkable,  that  he  has  kept  perfectly  free  of 
all  allusions  to  the  Crusades,  although  these  were  the  perpe- 
tual theme  and  admiration  of  all  the  other  poets  of  his  age. 

The  influence  of  the  Crusades,  and  of  those  eastern  pil- 
grimages which  were  then  so  prevalent,  is,  on  the  contrary, 
no  where  more  conspicuous  than  in  those  very  unequal  com- 
positions which  are  classed  together  under  the  name  of  the 
Helden-buch. 

Of  the  other  classes  of  chivalrous  fictions,  that  of  which 
Charlemagne  was  the  subject  was,  at  first,  indeed,  received 
with  great  favour  among  the  Germans ;  but  in  the  sequel, 
Arthur  and  the  Round  Table  had  completely  the  advantage. 
But  were  I  called  upon  to  give  a  general  opinion  concern- 
ing the  merits  and  defects  of  all  the  old  German  chivalrous 


GERMAN  WRITERS  OF  ROMANCE.  195 

poems,  I  should  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  I  consider 
their  chief  fault  to  lie  in  this, — that  they  are  all  too  much 
composed  in  the  spirit  and  tone  of  the  love  poems,  their  pre- 
decessors. According  to  my  judgment,  that  would  deserve 
to  be  considered  as  the  best  chivalrous  poem,  which,  being 
founded  originally  on  history  or  tradition,  should  express  so 
much  national  feeling,  and  give  to  its  marvellous  so  much  of 
the  character  of  power  and  greatness  as  might  entitle  it  to  be 
considered  as  a  heroic  poem,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
should  preserve  in  the  department  of  feeling,  all  that  beauty, 
and  tenderness,  and  love,  which  formed  the  excellence  of  the 
sentimental  poetry  of  the  Troubadours.  Whether  this  height 
of  perfection  was  in  reality  ever  attained  by  any  of  those  ac- 
complished masters  of  romantic  poetry,  who,  in  subsequent 
times,  have  appeared  among  the  Italians,  the  English,  and 
the  Germans,  I  shall  not  take  upon  me  to  decide.  The  poet 
who  appears  to  be  most  near  it  is  Torquato  Tasso. 

There  are  still  extant  several  German  romances,  particu- 
larly concerning  Tristram,  which,  in  their  unbroken  melody 
of  versification  and  softness  of  feeling,  are  entirely  similar  to 
the  old  poetry  of  Provence.  But  of  all  the  German  poets 
of  that  time,  by  far  the  most  accomplished  master  of  his  art 
was  Wolkram  Von  Eschenbach :  he  has  written  the  histo- 
ries of  the  Round  Table  in  a  manner  superior  to  any  other 
poet  of  any  country  in  Europe,  and  has  seized  in  particular, 
with  the  highest  success,  the  idea  of  that  doubly  allegorical 
method  of  treating  them,  to  which  I  have  above  alluded. 
His  hero  is  at  once  the  type  of  spiritual  warfare,  and  the 
ideal  of  a  Templar.  In  his  own  days,  the  fame  of  Wolk- 
ram was  as  great  in  Germany,  as  that  of  Dante  was  in  Italy ; 
and,  indeed,  he  bears  no  small  resemblance  to  that  illustrious 
poet,  both  in  his  propensity  to  allegories,  and  in  his  love  of 
displaying,  with  some  little  pedantry,  what  was  in  those 
times  a  greater  rarity  than  genius  itself — his  extensive  erudi- 
tion. In  respect  of  his  leaning  towards  an  almost  oriental 
fulness  of  fancy  in  his  descriptive  parts,  he  bears  perhaps 
more  resemblance  to  Ariosto  than  to  any  other  poet.  It  is 
with  old  poems,  as  with  old  pictures  and  statues ;  when  these 
are  first  dug  up  from  some  dungeon  of  concealment,  and 
seen  all  covered  over  with  the  rust  and  filth  of  ages,  it  is 
not  easy  to  perceive  at  one  view  the  real  excellence  which 


196       ORIGIN  OF  GOTHICK  ARCHITECTURE. 

they  possess.  To  comprehend  their  true  merits,  we  must 
wait  till  they  are  cleaned,  and  arranged,  and  inspected  at 
our  leisure. 

Although  I  have  mentioned  that  the  poetry  of  Wolkram 
Von  Eschenbach  is  in  some  respect  akin  to  Dante  and 
Ariosto,  I  am  yet  far  from  admiring  the  custom  of  those 
who  are  perpetually  tracing  resemblances  between  the  poets 
of  different  countries  and  ages.  These  resemblances  are  in 
general  either  insignificant  or  imaginary,  for  every  true  poet 
is  a  being  by  himself  If  we  must  compare  the  poems  of 
that  age  to  something,  let  it  be,  not  to  the  poems  of  other 
times,  but  to  the  other  works  of  art  which  were  produced  in 
their  own  time,  and  in  their  own  country.  They  resemble 
in  the  sublimity  of  that  solitary  idea  which  lies  at  the  bottom 
of  them  all,  and  also  in  that  fulness  of  ornament  which  cha- 
racterizes their  execution — ^those  monuments  of  the  Gothic 
architecture  which  we  still  survey  with  a  mixed  feeling  of 
melancholy,  delight,  and  wonder.  Perhaps  I  might  carry 
the  parallel  a  little  farther,  and  say  that  the  Gothic  architec- 
ture and  the  chivalrous  poetry  have  both  in  a  great  measure 
remained  ideal,  and  never  been  brought  to  perfection  in  exe- 
cution. It  may  be,  that  the  grandeur  of  the  original  con- 
ception comes  upon  us  with  a  stronger  impulse  from  this 
unfinished  work  than  it  might  have  done  had  they  been 
adorned  with  the  last  exquisite  touches  of  eleganca  The 
terrible  graces  are  ever  conversant  with  the  undefined.  The 
spirit  of  the  middle  ages  has  nowhere  so  powerfully  ex- 
pressed itself  as  in  those  monuments  of  an  architecture  whose 
origin,  after  all,  is  unknown  to  us.  I  speak  of  that  style  of 
Christian  architecture  which  is  characterized  by  its  lofty 
vaults  and  arches ;  its  pillars,  which  have  the  appearance  of 
being  formed  out  of  bundles  of  reeds ;  its  profusion  of  orna- 
ment ;  its  flowers  and  leaves — and  which  is  in  all  these  re- 
spects essentially  distinguished  from  that  elder  Christian 
architecture,  whose  first  and  best  model  is  to  be  found  in  the 
church  of  St.  Sophia  in  Constantinople.  That  it  was  not 
invented  by  the  Goths,  is  now  admitted  on  all  hands ;  for  the 
nation  of  the  Goths  had  passed  away  long  before  any  exist- 
ing specimens  of  it  were  formed ;  and  we  know  that  it  was 
not  an  art  which  took  centuries  to  perfect  it.  It  leapt  at  once 
to  perfection,  ^nd  its  oldest  monuments  are  the  best.     Neither 


THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  MILAN.  197 

is  it  in  any  respect  Moorish ;  or  if  it  be  so,  in  a  very  incon- 
siderable degree ;  for  we  have  many  true  old  Moorish  build- 
ings both  in  Sicily  and  in  Spain,  and  these  are  all  marked 
by  a  character  quite  peculiar  to  themselves.  And  with  re- 
gard to  the  specimens  of  Gothic  architecture  which  are  to 
be  found  in  the  East,  these  are  all,  beyond  any  doubt,  of 
European  origin,  and  exist  only  in  cities  and  churches  which 
formerly  belonged  to  the  Knights  of  the  Temple  and  of  St. 
John.  The  most  flourishing  period  of  this  architecture  was 
in  the  twelfth,  thirteenth,  and  fourteenth  centuries.  Its  chief 
seat  was  originally  in  Germany,  and  German  artists  con- 
structed, to  the  admiration  of  all  Italy,  the  great  cathedral 
of  Milan.  But  it  was  by  no  means  confined  to  Germany 
and  the  German  Netherlands ;  it  flourished,  on  the  contrary, 
with  equal  success  in  England,  and  in  the  northern  parts  of 
France.  Who  was  the  first  inventor  of  it  is  entirely  un- 
known ;  I  doubt  indeed  very  much  whether  it  was  ever 
brought  to  its  perfection  by  any  one  great  architect ;  for  in 
that  case  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  his  name  could  have 
been  utterly  forgotten.  I  am  rather  of  their  opinion,  who 
conceive  that  this  system  of  architecture  was  perfected  and 
diffused  over  all  Europe  by  a  small  society  of  artists  who 
were  very  closely  connected  with  each  other.  But  whoever 
might  be  the  builders,  this  much  is  certain,  that  they  were 
not  mere  heapers  together  of  stones,  but  had  all  thoughts 
w^hich  they  meant  to  embody  in  their  labours.  Let  a  build- 
ing be  ever  so  beautiful,  if  it  be  destitute  of  meanings  it  can- 
not belong  to  the  fine  arts.  The  proper  display  of  purpose, 
the  immediate  expression  of  feeling,  is  indeed  denied  to  this 
oldest  and  most  sublime  of  all  the  arts ;  it  must  excite  the 
feelings  through  the  medium  of  thought,  but  perhaps  the 
feelings  which  it  does  excite  are  on  that  account  only  so 
much  the  more  powerful.  All  architecture  is  symbolical, 
but  none  so  much  so  as  the  Christian  architecture  of  the 
middle  age.  The  first  and  the  greatest  of  its  objects  is  to 
express  the  elevation  of  holy  thoughts,  the  loftiness  of  medi- 
tation set  free  from  earth,  and  proceeding  unfettered  to  the 
heavens.  It  is  this  which  stamps  itself  at  once  on  the  spirit 
of  the  beholder,  however  little  he  may  himself  be  capable 
of  analyzing  his  feelings,  when  he  gazes  on  these  far-stretch- 
ing columns  and  airy  domes.     But  this  is  not  all ;  every 

17* 


198  GOTHICK  ARCHITECTURE  DESCRIBED. 

part  of  the  structure  is  as  symbolical  as  the  whole,  and  of 
this  we  can  perceive  many  traces  in  all  the  writings  of  the 
times.  The  altar  is  directed  towards  the  rising  of  the  sun, 
and  the  three  great  entrances  are  meant  to  express  the  con- 
flux of  worshippers  from  all  the  regions  of  the  earth.  Three 
towers  express  the  Christian  mystery  of  the  triune  Godhead. 
The  choir  rises  like  a  temple  within  a  temple  with  redoubled 
loftiness.  The  shape  of  the  cross  is  in  common  with  the 
Christian  churches  even  of  the  earlier  times.  The  round 
arch  was  adopted  in  the  earlier  Christian  architecture,  but 
laid  aside  on  account  of  the  superior  gracefulness  supposed 
to  result  from  the  crossing  of  four  arches.  The  rose  is  the 
essential  part  of  all  the  ornament  of  this  architecture ;  even 
the  shape  of  the  windows,  doors,  and  towers,  may  be  traced 
to  it,  as  well  as  all  the  accompanying  decoration  of  flowers 
and  leaves.  When  we  view  the  whole  structure,  from  the 
crypt  to  the  choir,  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  idea  of  earthly 
death  leading  only  to  the  fulness,  the  freedom,  the  solemn 
glories  of  eternity. 

I  have  said  this  much  merely  to  point  out  in  passing,  how 
widely  they  err  who  despise  indiscriminately  the  works  and 
the  spirit  of  the  middle  ages.  They  who  do  so  are  in  general 
little  acquainted  with  the  works,  and  altogether  incapable  of 
comprehending  the  spirit  of  a  period  so  remote  from  their 
own. 

In  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  the  tendency  of 
the  Germans  was  chiefly  to  moral  didactic  poems,  partly  of 
allegorical,  partly  of  satirical,  import.  Of  this  the  fable  book 
of  Reineke  Fucks  may  be  cited  as  an  example ;  and  in  truth 
if  we  would  see  a  clear  and  precise  picture  of  the  course  of 
human  affairs  in  those  ages,  I  know  not  any  other  book  from 
which  we  may  learn  so  much  of  all  these  things  as  from  this. 
The  witty  author  has  contrived  with  great  adroitness  to  let 
us  see  that  the  fox,  whose  success  he  represents  among  the 
animals,  is  only  the  type  of  that  cunning  which  was  in  those 
days  found  to  be  the  true  road  to  preferment,  both  among 
knights  and  burghers.  The  chivalrous  poetry  of  a  former 
age  erred  in  entirely  departing  from  history,  and  becoming 
a  mere  display  of  imagination  ;  the  poets  now  ran  into  the 
opposite  extreme,  and  composed  regular  chronicles  in  rhyme. 
Thus  the  two  elements  of  true  heroic  poetry  were  given  not 


THE  AGE  OF  THE  TROUBADOURS.  199 

in  conjunction,  but  in  detail.  The  two  last  considerable  spe- 
cimens of  our  elder  poetry  are  to  be  found  in  the  celebrated 
romances  which  were  both  published,  one  of  them  perhaps 
in  a  great  measure  composed,  by  the  Emperor  Maximilian ; 
the  one  of  these  is  in  prose,  the  other  in  verse.  Both  of 
these  books  are  valuable  on  account  of  the  spirit  with  which 
they  are  animated;  but  the  half-allegorical  half-historical 
mode  of  composition  then  in  fashion,  was,  it  is  probable,  ex- 
tremely unfavourable  to  the  noble  genius  of  Maximilian — • 
the  last  of  the  old  Germans. 

The  spirit  of  chivalry  remained  nowhere  so  long  in  all  its 
'  active  purity  as  in  France  and  England,  but  the  chivalrous 
poetry  of  those  countries  became  very  soon  corrupted,  and 
that  even  before  it  had  time  to  reach  any  high  degree  of  per- 
fection in  its  development.  In  France  it  degenerated  into 
long  prose  romances,  which  were  quite  destitute  of  the  spirit 
of  the  ancient  minstrelsy.  In  England  its  fate  was  more 
favourable ;  for  although  it  was  reduced  to  compositions  of 
no  great  extent,  these  undoubtedly  were  well  qualified  to 
take  fast  hold  of  the  mind,  and  preserve  alive  the  feelings  of 
chivalry  in  the  bosoms  of  the  people.  The  French,  indeed, 
are  not  without  their  old  songs  and  ballads,  and  many  of 
them  are  distinguished  by  great  tenderness  of  feeling  ;  but 
neither  in  quality  nor  quantity  can  they  for  a  moment  be 
compared  with  the  popular  poetry  of  the  English — more 
particularly  of  the  Scots ;  they  are  as  much  inferior  to  them 
as  the  northern  French  love-poems  of  a  former  age  were  to 
those  of  the  Provencial  Troubadours.  Among-  the  original 
poets  of  this  old  French  time,  Thibault,  Count  of  Cham- 
pagne, and  King  of  Navarre,  appears  to  be  entitled  to  a  high 
place,  perhaps  to  the  very  first.  The  fictitious  histories  of 
Charlemagne  and  the  Round  Table  were  first  composed  in 
the  French  language,  either  after  Latin  authorities,  or  from 
the  traditions  of  the  vulgar.  But  in  every  department  of 
literature  which  flourished  in  France,  England  also  had  her 
share,  and  to  understand  this  with  propriety,  we  must  take 
into  our  consideration  what  was  the  political  situation  of 
France  at  that  period.  Provence  we  must  consider  altoge- 
ther by  itself;  for  not  only  had  it  a  language  of  its  own,  but 
it  was  also  a  fee  of  the  empire,  belonging  to  Burgundy,  and 
the  flourishing  state  of  Provencial  poetry  commenced  from 


200  EARLY  FRENCH  LITERATURE. 

the  time  when  Frederick  Barbarossa  gave  its  investiture  to  the 
Count  Berengar.  The  northern  and  eastern  provinces  of 
France,  on  the  other  hand,  were  under  the  government  of 
England ;  and  in  truth  the  whole  chivalry  and  chivalrous 
poetry,  both  of  the  French  and  the  English,  may  be  said  to 
have  belonged  of  right  not  to  them  but  to  the  Normans. 

Of  the  first  progress  of  the  French  language,  the  celebra- 
ted Roman  de  la  Rose  gives,  in  spite  of  all  its  fame,  no  very 
advantageous  impression.  The  French  literature  of  the 
fourteenth  century  is  indeed  extremely  poor ;  but  from  the 
romances  and  what  other  productions  of  that  period  we  have 
in  our  hands,  it  appears  that  the  language  had  at  that  time  a' 
character  very  inferior  in  every  respect  to  the  contemporary 
dialects  of  Spain  and  Italy.  The  French  language  never 
assumed  its  proper  shape  till  long  afterwards.  Nor  was  the 
case  very  different  in  England,  where  all  the  knowledge  and 
genius  of  Chaucer  could  not  introduce  either  uniformity  into 
the  language,  or  nature  into  the  feelings  of  his  countrymen. 
It  is  probable  that  the  long  wars  between  France  and  Eng- 
land, during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  and  the 
bloody  feuds  of  York  and  Lancaster,  prevented,  in  a  great 
measure,  the  natural  progress  both  of  language  and  poetry 
in  the  two  countries.  That  much  of  the  literature  of  that 
age  has  perished  there  is  every  reason  to  believe ;  but  to 
judge  from  what  remains,  as  the  riches  of  the  English  con- 
sisted in  ballads,  so  that  of  the  French  consisted  in  fabliaux 
and  little  tales  or  novels ;  these  were  in  a  great  measure  the 
fountains  from  which  Boccaccio  drew  his  fictions,  and,  in- 
deed, they  wanted  only  a  style  like  his  to  procure  for  them 
that  honour  which  is  due  to  the  rich  imagination  of  their 
inventors. 

But  even  in  this  early  age  of  French  literature,  it  is  easy 
to  perceive  a  strong  tendency  to  the  same  species  of  writing 
which  is  the  most  peculiar  and  original,  and  which  has  since 
become  the  richest  of  all  its  possessions.  I  mean  those  his- 
torical memoirs  of  particular  men  or  times,  in  which  there 
is  displayed,  with  so  much  liveliness,  the  spirit  of  social  ob- 
servation, and  which  in  their  portraitures  of  manners,  and 
their  minuteness  of  finishing,  bear  a  considerable  resemblance 
to  romance  writing.  The  first  of  these  compositions  (which 
form  the  most  valuable  part  of  French  literature)  is  the  work 


THE  LITERATURE  OF  SPAIN.  201 

of  the  faithful  servant  and  friend  of  St.  Louis,  the  Sieur  de 
Joinville. 

The  literature  of  Spain  possesses  a  high  advantage  over 
that  of  most  other  nations,  in  its  historical  heroic  romance  of 
the  Cid.  This  is  exactly  that  species  of  poetry  which  ex- 
erts the  nearest  and  the  most  powerful  influence  over  the 
national  feelings  and  character  of  a  people.  A  single  work, 
such  as  the  Cid,  is  of  more  real  value  to  a  nation  than  a 
whole  library  of  books,  however  abounding  in  wit  or  intel- 
lect, which  are  destitute  of  the  spirit  of  nationality.  Akhough 
in  the  shape  in  which  it  now  appears  the  work  was  probably 
produced  about  the  eleventh  century,  yet  the  whole  body  of 
its  inventions  belongs  to  the  older  period  antecedent  to  the 
Crusades.  There  is  here  no  trace  of  that  oriental  taste  for 
the  wonderful  and  the  fabulous  which  afterwards  became  so 
predominant.  It  breathes  the  pure,  true-hearted,  noble  old 
Castilian  spirit,  and  is  in  fact  the  true  history  of  the  Cid,  first 
arranged  and  extended  into  a  poetical  form,  very  shortly,  it 
is  probable,  after  the  age  of  that  hero  himself.  I  have  already 
taken  notice  that  the  heroic  poetry  and  mythology  of  almost 
all  nations  is  in  its  essence  tragical  and  elegiac.  But  there 
is  another  less  serious  view  of  the  heroic  life,  which  was 
often  represented  even  by  the  ancients  themselves.  Hercules 
and  his  bodily  strength,  and  his  eating,  are  drawn  in  the  true 
colours  of  comedy,  and  the  wandering  adventures  and  lying 
stories  of  Ulysses,  have  been  the  original  of  all  amusing  ro- 
mances. But,  in  truth,  specimens  of  this  sort  of  representa- 
tion are  to  be  found  in  the  histories  of  almost  all  great  heroes. 
However  powerfully  history  may  represent  the  hero's 
superiority  in  magnanimity,  in  bravery,  and  in  corporeal 
strength,  it  effects  its  purpose  by  depicting  him  not  among 
the  poetical  obscurities  of  a  world  of  wonders,  but  surrounded 
by  the  realities  of  life ;  and  it  is  then  that  we  receive  the 
strongest  impression  of  his  power,  when  we  see  it  exerted  in 
opposition,  not  to  imaginary  evils  of  which  we  have  little 
conception,  but  to  the  every-day  difficulties  and  troubles  of 
the  world,  to  which  we  ourselves  feel  that  ordinary  men  are 
incapable  of  offering  any  resistance.  We  have  many  in- 
stances of  this  comic  sort  of  writing  in  the  Spanish  Cid ;  for 
example,  there  is  the  description  of  his  rather  unfair  method 
of  raising  money  to  support  his  war  against  the  Moors,  by 


202  SPANISH  BALLADS. 

borrowing-  from  a  Jewish  usurer  and  leaving  a  chest  of  old 
stones  and  lumber  as  his  pledge  ;  and  the  account  of  the  in- 
sult offered  to  his  dead  body  by  another  ofthat  race,  and  the 
terror  into  which  he  was  thrown  by  the  Cid  starting  up  on 
his  bier,  and  drawing  his  sword  a  span's  length  out  of  the 
scabbard.  These  are  touches  of  popular  humour  by  no 
means  out  of  place  in  a  romance  founded  on  popular  tradi- 
tions. But  there  is  a  spirit  of  more  delicate  irony  in  those 
sorrowful  lamentations  with  which  Donna  Ximena  is  made 
to  address  the  King  on  account  of  the  protracted  absence  of 
her  husband,  as  well  as  in  the  reply  of  the  Monarch.  The 
romances  translated  into  our  language  by  Herder  are  much 
later  in  date,  but  still  preserve  in  great  purity  the  character 
of  the  ancient  fictions.  They  abound  also  in  a  very  peculiar 
simplicity  of  expression  and  feeling,  Avhich  are  not  so  per- 
ceptible in  the  somewhat  careless  translation  of  our  great 
critic. 

The  Spaniards  are  as  rich  in  ballads  as  the  English  and 
Scotch ;  but  theirs  are  possessed  of  certain  peculiar  excel- 
lencies to  which  the  others  have  no  pretension.  They  are 
not  only  popular  ballads,  intelligible  and  clear  to  the  vulgar, 
they  are  also  true  national  and  heroic  poems,  which  may  be 
read  with  the  highest  admiration  by  the  most  refined  critics. 
Popular  ballads  are  in  general  a  sort  of  lamentations  over 
an  antiquity  of  greatness  more  favourable  for  the  poet.  But 
it  is  always  to  be  regretted  when  that  poetry,  whose  business 
it  is  to  keep  alive  the  national  feelings  of  a  whole  people, 
assumes  a  form  which  adapts  it  only  for  the  vulgar.  Such 
poetry  has,  moreover,  this  disadvantage,  that  it  is  its  inevita- 
ble fate  to  become  every  day  more  unintelligible  even  to 
those  for  whose  use  it  is  formed.  In  general,  however,  po- 
ems of  this  sort  are  to  be  found  in  the  greatest  abundance 
among  nations  possessed  of  truly  poetical  feelings,  whose  le- 
gends, traditions,  and  national  recollections,  have  been  in- 
terrupted or  mutilated  by  long  protracted  civil  wars,  or  by 
some  universal  revolution  and  concussion  of  opinions. 


LECTURE  IX. 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE — ALLEGORIZING    SPIRIT   OP    THE  MIDDLE  AGE RE- 

LATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY    TO    POETRY DANTE,  PETRARCHA,  AND    BOC- 
CACCIO  CHARACTER    OF    THE    ITALIAN  ART  OF  POETRY  IN  GENERAL 

MODERN  LATIN  POETS,  AND  THE    EVIL    CONSEQUENCES    OF    THEIR  WRI- 
TINGS  MACHIAVELLI GREAT    INVENTIONS    AND    DISCOVERIES    OF  THE 

FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


In  the  preceding  lectures  I  have  endeavoured  to  present 
you  with  successive  pictures  of  the  different  Europen  nations, 
the  Germans,  the  French,  the  English,  and  the  Spaniards, 
more  particularly  in  regard  to  their  poetry  and  their  intel- 
lectual cultivation,  down  to  the  sixteenth  century.  The  lite- 
rature of  the  Italians  has  alone  been  omitted,  and  that  I  have 
purposely  left  for  this  place,  because  I  consider  it  as  form- 
ing the  link  of  connection  between  the  poetry  of  the  middle 
age,  and  the  new  literature  of  these  later  times;  since  the 
sciences,  and  through  them  the  arts,  were,  in  the  course  of 
the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  so  remarkably  enriched 
and  revived. 

The  elder  poetry  of  the  Italians  divides  itself  into  two 
distinct  classes ;  one  founded  entirely  on  the  philosophy  of 
the  middle  ages,  of  which  the  greatest  example  is  the  alle- 
gorical Comedia  of  Dante ;  the  other  more  nearly  approach- 
ing to  the  models  of  antiquity,  and  standing  in  a  very  inti- 
mate relation  with  the  study  of  the  ancient  languages.  The 
two  great  poets,  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio,  were  themselves 
men  of  learning,  who  took  no  inconsiderable  share  in  re- 
viving the  sciences  and  arts  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  The 
spirit  of  chivalry  and  chivalric  poetry  seems  at  no  time  to 
have  attained  the  same  sway  and  influence  in  Italy,  which 
it  exerted  in  France,  Germany,  and  England.  Even  Dante 
at  first  intended  to  compose  his  great  poem  in  Latin  ;  Pe- 
trarch talks  of  the  knightly  poems  and  romances  with  con- 


204  DANTE  AND  BOCCACCIO. 

tempt  and  aversion ;  and  although  he  has  embalmed  the 
very  spirit  of  the  middle  age  in  his  rich  love  songs,  he 
seems,  at  the  same  time,  to  have  rather  followed  involun- 
tarily the  ruling  feelings  of  his  contemporaries,  than  to  have 
written  from  any  serious  apprehension  of  the  true  nature 
and  excellence  of  the  modern  poetry.  He  founded,  in  his 
own  mind,  his  expectations  of  poetical  fame,  not  upon  those 
sonnets  and  canzonets  "which  have  immortalized  him,  but 
upon  the  Latin  epic  of  Scipio,*  which  is  now  only  known 
and  read  on  account  of  the  reputation  of  its  author.  The 
same  wavering  between  the  old  Latin  and  the  new  Italian 
methods  of  thinking,  speaking,  and  composing  poetry,  is 
equally  evident  in  the  third  great  writer  of  the  first  Italian 
period — Boccaccio.  He  endeavoured  to  embody  the  hair- 
splitting fancifulness  of  the  Provencial  love-queries  and  love- 
cases  of  conscience,  and  the  amusing  fictions  of  the  Norman 
story-tellers,  in  a  style  of  composition  far  too  serious,  too 
elaborate,  and  too  ornate  for  his  purpose.  He  has  written 
novels  upon  the  model  of  Livy  and  Cicero.  Many  of  his 
works  consist  of  unsuccessful  attempts  to  interweave  the 
mythology  of  the  ancients  into  Christian  histories,  or  to  ex- 
press Christian  ideas  in  the  language  and  mythology  of  the 
ancients;  as,  for  example,  in  a  chivalric  romance,  where 
such  affectation  appears  remarkably  out  of  place,  he  intro- 
duces at  all  times  God  the  Father,  by  the  name  of  Jupiter, 
our  Saviour,  by  that  of  Apollo ;  and  the  Devil,  by  that  of 
Pluto.  In  some  of  his  chivalric  poems  he  has  chosen  the 
subject,  after  the  fashion  of  the  middle  age,  out  of  the  ancient 
mythology,  with  which,  indeed,  there  is  no  question,  he  was 
far  better  acquainted  than  any  of  the  German  or  French 
poets  who  had  preceded  him  in  the  same  field.  In  this  un- 
fortunate choice  he  still  manifests  the  same  passionate  predi- 
lection for  the  antique,  and  indulges  in  the  same  fruitless 
endeavours  to  reconcile  it  with  those  poetical  feelings  which 
are  peculiar  to  the  modern  world. 

The  most  rich,  dignified,  and  inventive  of  all  the  three 
great  old  Italian  poets  was  unquestionably  Dante ;  w^hose 
work,  comprehending  within  itself  the  whole  science  and 
knowledge  of  the  time,  the  whole  life  of  the  later  middle 

*  Known  also  by  the  name  o^  Africa. 


ALLEGORIES  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGE.  205 

age,  the  whole  personages  and  events  in  which  the  poet 
personally  had  interest ;  and  not  only  all  this,  but  also  a 
complete  description  of  heaven,  hell,  and  purgatory,  such  as 
these  were  then  conceived  to  be,  is  a  production  entirely 
unique,  and  can  be  ranked  under  no  class  of  compositions. 
It  is  true,  indeed,  that  many  such  allegorical  poems  were 
composed  during  the  middle  age,  more  particularly  in  the 
language  of  the  Provencials ;  but  these  have  all  perished  or 
been  forgotten.  Dante  has  towered  so  high  above  all  his 
predecessors  in  this  sort  of  writing,  that  both  they  and  their 
works  have  been  completely  overshadowed.  If  we  are  will- 
ing to  study  the  poetry  of  the  middle  age  without  being 
biassed  in  favour  of  any  particular  theory,  and  without  at- 
tending to  the  rhetorical  divisions  of  the  ancient  critics, 
which  are  mostly  altogether  inapplicable  to  it — if  we  are 
willing  to  consider  it  in  a  point  of  view  entirely  historical, 
and  to  judge  of  it  according  to  no  standard  but  that  of  its 
own  spirit — we  shall  find  that  it  naturally  divides  itself  into 
three  species,  the  chivalric,  the  amatory,  and  the  allegorical. 
By  this  last  species,  I  mean,  of  course,  that  in  which  the  ob- 
ject and  purpose  of  the  whole  composition,  no  less  than  its 
external  form,  is  allegorical,  as  is  the  case  m  Dante.  The 
spirit  of  allegory  has  here  its  most  peculiar  triumph ;  but  its 
influence  is  wide-spread  and  predominant  over  all  the  poetry 
of  the  middle  ages.  How  often  an  allegorical  spirit  and 
sense  was  enclosed,  even  in  the  form  of  a  romance  of  chival- 
ry, I  have  already  hinted,  in  treating  of  the  German  mode 
of  handling  the  fables  of  the  Round  Table  and  the  Graal. 
The  difference  consists  in  this,  that  in  these  allegorical  ro- 
mances the  hidden  sense  is  wrapped  up  in  a  Tepresentation 
of  human  life  and  transactions,  while  in  Dante,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  representations  of  human  life  are  only  inserted 
here  and  there  as  adventitious  pieces  of  furniture  in  the  art- 
fully divided  saloons  and  gaHeries  of  this  world-embracing 
allegory.  It  appears  that  this  universal  tendency  to  allegory, 
which  was  so  predominant  in  all  the  middle  age,  and  which, 
in  considering  all  the  works  of  that  period,  we  cannot  too 
much  keep  in  our  remembrance,  had  been  in  a  very  great 
measure  encouraged  and  extended  by  the  influence  of  the 
Christian  religion. 

Whether  we  consider  the  Bible  in  regard  to  the  powerful 

18 


206  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES 

influence  whkh  it  has  in  reality  exerted  upon  the  whole 
literature  and  poetry  of  the  middle  age  and  of  modern  times, 
or  view  merely  the  impression  which,  as  a  book,  and  in  re- 
lation to  its  exterior  form,  it  was  and  is  calculated  to  produce 
upon  the  language,  art,  and  spirit  of  composition,  we  shall 
find  two  peculiarities  which  are  above  all  worthy  of  our  at- 
tention. The  first  is  simplicity  of  expression — the  total  want 
of  all  artifice.  Although  the  sacred  writings  are  principally 
or  almost  exclusively  occupied  with  God  and  the  internal 
being  of  man,  their  mode  of  treating  these  topics  is  every- 
where lively  and  distinct ;  they  contain  little  of  what  we  are 
accustomed  to  call  metaphj'-sics ;  they  are  free  from  all  those 
distinctions  and  antitheses,  those  dead  ideas  and  empty  ab- 
stractions, with  which  the  philosophy  of  every  nation,  from 
the  Greeks  and  Indians  down  to  the  modern  Europeans,  has 
at  all  times  been  disfigured,  whenever  she  has  attempted  to 
comprehend  and  explain,  by  her  own  unassisted  powers, 
those  highest  objects  of  all  reflection,  God  and  man.  The 
hereditary  evils  of  endless  bewildering,  and  of  inconsistent 
and  urtificiai  reasoning,  have  adhered  to  her  even  when 
disclaiming  all  interference  with  those  high  questions  and 
topics ;  she  has  either  retreated  into  the  world  of  sense,  or 
exerted  all  her  powers  in  the  mere  confession  of  her  igno- 
rance. The  same  simplicity  and  absence  of  artifice  distin- 
guish even  the  poetical  parts  of  the  Scriptures,  much  as 
those  abound  in  specimens  of  the  beautiful,  and  above  all  of 
the  sublime.  If  we  look,  indeed,  to  the  elaborate  develop- 
ment and  forms  of  writing,  the  simplicity  of  the  sacred  poesy 
prevents  it  from  sustaining  any  sort  of  comparison  with  the 
richness  of  the  Grecian  compositions.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  m  those  great  works,  the  utmost  perfection  of  blossom 
is  almost  every  where  followed  by  the  symptoms  of  decay, 
and  to  the  highest  polish  of  art  there  succeeds,  not  unfre- 
quently,  an  ambitious  and  luxuriant  taste  which  delights  in 
superfluous  ornament  and  over-loaded  artifice.  There  exist 
many  causes  in  the  imagination  of  man,  in  the  whole  com- 
plexion of  his  perceptions,  in  the  propensities  and  feelings 
of  his  nature,  which  may  abundantly  explain  this  universal 
appearance  in  the  history  of  art ;  many  influences  which 
may  poison  and  corrode  the  bloom  of  beauty,  before  yet  it 
is  perfectly  unfolded,  or  which  may  reduce  the  noble  sim- 


PECULIARITIES  OF  THE  BIBLE.  207 

plicity  of  expression,  after  that  has  been  perfectly  displayed, 
to  the  false  artifices  of  corruption.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
even  those  Christian  poets  of  modern  times,  who  have  taken 
either  their  subjects  or  their  models  from  the  Scriptures, 
Dante,  Tasso,  Milton,  and  Klopstock,  resemble  their  origi- 
nals rather  by  individual  traits  of  sublimity,  than  by  any 
sustained  imitation  of  the  faultless  simplicity  of  the  Bible. 

A  second  peculiarity  in  the  outward  form  and  composition 
of  the  Scriptures,  which  has  had  a  very  powerful  eifect  upoa 
our  language  and  poetry,  is  that  prevailing  spirit  of  types 
and  symbols  so  conspicuous  not  only  in  the  poetical  books, 
but  in  those  also  whose  texture  is  entirely  didactic  or  histo- 
rical. In  one  point  of  view  the  Holy  Book  may  be  consi- 
dered as  a  national  possession  of  the  Hebrews,  common  in 
some  measure  to  several  other  oriental  peoples,  such  as  the 
Arabs  and  other  tribes  originally  descended  from  the  same 
stock  with  the  inhabitants  of  Judaea.  The  prohibition  of 
sensible  images  of  the  Deity  might  contribute  in  no  incon- 
siderable degree  to  foster  this  propensity  among  the  Hebrews ; 
for  the  power  of  imagination,  being  confined  in  one  direction, 
naturally  seeks  an  outlet  in  some  other.  A  similar  prohibi- 
tion has  produced  a  similar  eflJect  among  the  modem  Maho- 
metans. But  even  in  those  parts  of  the  Scriptures,  where 
little  or  no  room  is  afforded  for  the  introduction  of  this  old 
oriental  species  of  typical  poetry;  as,  for  example,  in  the 
Christian  books  of  the  Bible,  the  prevalence  of  a  symboliz- 
ing spirit  is  still  abundantly  apparent.  This  spirit  has 
deeply  implanted,  and  widely  extended,  its  influence  over  the 
whole  thoughts  and  imagination  of  the  Christian  peoples. 
By  means  of  this  symbolical  spirit,  and  the  consequent  pro- 
pensity to  allegory,  the  Bible  has  come  to  exert  the  same  in- 
fluence upon  the  poetry  and  all  the  imitative  arts  of  the  mid- 
dle age,  and  very  nearly  the  same  upon  those  of  our  own 
more  cultivated  times,  which  Homer  did  among  the  an- 
cients ;  it  has  become  the  fountain,  the  rule,  and  the  model 
of  all  our  imasfes  and  fiofures.  It  is  true  that  in  cases  where 
the  deeper  sense  of  its  symbolical  mysteries  was  mistaken,  or 
where  the  purpose  which  the  figure  had  been  intended  to 
serve  was  of  a  nature  less  serious  and  sacred,  this  spirit  has 
not  unfrequently  displayed  itself  in  the  corrupted  form  of  idle 
and  fantastical^  allegory ;  for  loaded  ornament  is  at  all  times 


208  RELATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  POETRY. 

of  easier  attainment  than  native  grace,  and  the  most  brilliant 
display  of  art  is  a  thing  more  common-place  than  the  deep 
gravity  of  truth. 

In  regard  to  both  of  the  last  mentioned  peculiarities,  had 
these  only  been  every  where  felt  and  understood,  the  Scrip- 
tures might  have  afforded  to  Christians  a  high  model  of  imi- 
tation, far  more  beautiful  in  itself,  and  far  more  universal  in 
its  application,  than  any  thing  which  they  could  have  bor- 
rowed from  the  Greeks.  Had  the  spirit  of  Christianity 
thoroughly  penetrated  us  with  its  enlivening  influence,  we 
could  not  have  failed  to  derive  from  it,  both  in  our  language 
and  in  our  composition,  both  in  our  science  and  in  our  art, 
a  noble  and  sustained  beauty,  which  is  the  same  thing  with 
truth,  and  whose  influence  must  have  in  all  respects  been 
alike  predominant  and  enduring.  But  in  and  by  itself 
Christianity  is,  according  to  my  opinion,  no  proper  subject 
of  poetry;  I  except  lyrical  compositions,  which  are  to  be 
considered  as  direct  emanations  of  feeling.  Christianity  it- 
self cannot  be  either  philosophy  or  poetry.  It  is  rather 
what  ought  to  be  the  groundwork  of  all  philosophy ;  for 
they  who  philosophize  w^ithout  taking  Christianity  for  their 
guide,  terminate  either  in  doubt  and  inextricable  perplexities, 
or  in  the  cold  and  despairing  void  of  unbelief  On  the  other 
hand,  Christianity  is  removed  far  above  all  poetry ;  the  in- 
fluence of  our  sublime  faith  should  indeed  be  every  where 
around  us,  but  here  its  ministrations  should  be  felt,  not  seen, 
and  we  should  beware  of  debasing,  by  familiarity,  that  which 
is  most  worthy  of  our  reverence. 

The  relation  of  Christianity  to  poetry  and  all  the  litera- 
ture of  imagination,  is  one  which  must  be  considered  with 
the  deepest  attention,  whenever  we  would  inquire  into  the 
comparative  relations  of  the  literature  of  the  ancients  and 
that  of  the  moderns,  and  examine  in  how  far  the  latter  of 
these  is  capable  of  contending  with  the  former,  and  mani- 
festing in  its  productions  an  equal  degree  of  perfection. 
What  should  that  poetry  and  that  art  have  been,  which  had 
been  exclusively  occupied,  down  to  the  present  hour,  in  re- 
presenting the  faded  forms  and  shadows  of  that  antiquity 
whose  spirit  and  life  are  fled,  or  which  should  have  pretend- 
ed indeed  to  employ  themselves  upon  our  modern  life,  but  at 
all  times  confined  themselves  to  its  surface  and  exterior,  with- 


THE  GREAT  CHRISTIAN  POETS.  209 

out  daring  to  search  into  that  deep  point  of  interest  and 
thought,  from  whence  our  meditations  and  our  feeHngs  have 
derived  their  peculiarity  and  their  power ! 

It  is  no  wonder  that  so  many  whole  ages  and  nations, 
and  so  many  illustrious  geniuses  of  Christendom,  have 
striven  to  honour  their  religion,  and  embody  its  revelations, 
by  consecrating  to  its  exclusive  service  the  poetry  of  which 
they  were  possessed. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  that 
the  indirect  expression  of  Christian  feelings,  the  indirect  in- 
fluence of  the  spirit  of  Christianity  upon  our  poetry,  if  not 
the  only  just  and  true  influence,  has,  as  yet  at  least,  been  the 
surest  and  the  most  successful.  In  this  sense  it  is  that  we 
may  call  the  chivalric  poetry  of  the  middle  age  (which,  like 
the  Gothic  architecture,  never  attained  complete  perfection-) 
a  truly  Christian  heroic  poetry;  for  the  charaeteristies 
which  distinguish  it  from  the  heroic  poetry  of  all  other  na- 
tions, and  of  the  more  remote  antiquity,  are  in  their  essence 
and  origin  unquestionably  Christian.  The  spirit,  indeed,  is- 
that of  Gothic  antiquity,  the  fictions  and  the  personages  are 
derived  from  the  pagan  legends  of  the  north,  but  all  these 
are  changed  and  purified  by  the  predominant  feeling  and  the 
faith  of  love,  which  have  lent  new  beauty  and  sublimity  evert 
to  the  wildest  play  of  the  imagination.  But  so  soon  as  the 
poet  attempts  to  reveal  directly  the  mysteries  of  our  religion^ 
we  perceive  that  he  has  made  election  of  a  subject  which  is 
above  the  standard  of  his  powers.  This  much  is  certain, 
that  no  attempt  of  this  kind,  however  masterly  the  talents 
with  Avhich  it  has  been  conducted,  has  attained  a  degree  of 
perfection  sufficient  altogether  to  remove  this  impression. 
We  remark  the  defect  in  Dante,  the  first  and  oldest  of  all 
great  Christian  poets,  and  it  is  no  less  frequently  to  be  ob- 
served in  the  works  of  his  later  followers,  Tasso,  Milton, 
and  Klopstock.  By  Dante  himself,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
heavenly  appearances,  and  holy  ecstasies  are  described  in  far 
more  vivid  colours,  and  with  more  true  power  of  imagina- 
tion, than  by  any  other  Christian  poet.  But  his  most  zeal- 
ous admirers  must  admit,  that  even  in  him  the  poetry  and 
the  Christianity  are  not  always  perfectly  in  harmony  with 
each  other,  and  that  his  work,  if  it  aspire  to  the  name  of  a 
manual  of  doctrine  and  theology,  must  found  its  pretensions 


210  THE  GENIUS  OF  DANTE. 

not  upon  its  general  scope,  but  upon  some  particular  pas- 
sages with  which  it  is  enriched.  Although  his  genius  was 
thoroughly  poetical,  and  indulged  itself  with  the  greatest 
partiality  in  the  boldest  visions  of  imagination,  it  is  evident 
that  the  prevailing  scholastics  of  the  day  had  exerted  a  very 
great  power  over  this  remarkable  spirit.  His  singular  poem 
is  rich  beyond  all  other  example  in  its  representations  of  hu- 
man life.  By  his  plan  of  describing  the  three  great  regions 
of  darkness,  of  purification,  and  of  light,  he  has  found  an 
opportunity  of  introducing  every  variety  of  human  charac- 
ter, incident,  and  fortune;  he  has  depicted,  with  equally 
strong  and  masterly  touches  of  horror,  tenderness,  and  en- 
thusiasm, every  situation  in  which  the  human  spirit  can  be 
placed,  beginning  with  the  deepest  gloom  of  hell  and  despair, 
and  then  shading  away  this  blackness  into  softer  sorrows, 
and  illuminating  these  again  with  gradually  brightening 
tints  of  hope,  till  on  the  summit  of  his  picture  he  pours  the 
warmest  radiance  of  serenity  and  joy.  Those  who  are  able 
thoroughly  to  comprehend  his  spirit,  and  to  enter  into  all 
his  views  and  purposes,  cannot  fail  to  discover  in  his  appa- 
rently most  miscellaneous  poem,  the  strongest  unity  and  con- 
nection of  design.  It  is  difficult  to  know  which  are  most 
worthy  of  admiration,  the  daring  imagination  which  could 
first  venture  to  form  such  a  plan,  or  that  phalanx  of  unpa- 
ralleled powers  which  could  accompany  him  steadily  through 
its  execution.  The  chief  misfortune  is,  that  neither  this  har- 
mony of  plan,  nor  this  vigour  of  execution,  are  very  easy 
to  be  comprehended,  for  he  that  comes  properly  prepared  to 
the  study  of  Dante,  must  bring  with  him  stores  of  science 
and  knowledge  of  the  most  various  kinds,  far  beyond  what 
is  required  from  the  reader  of  any  other  poet.  To  his  own 
contemporaries,  and  the  immediately  following  generation, 
his  geography  and  astronomy  must  have  been  far  less  foreign 
than  they  are  to  us ;  his  perpetual  allusions  to  the  Florentine 
history  must  also  have  been  far  less  obscure,  and  even  the 
philosophy  of  the  poet  was  that  of  the  age  in  which  he 
lived.  Yet  even  then  it  appears  that  his  work  stood  in 
great  need  of  a  commentary ;  and  the  truth  is,  that  at  no 
time  has  the  greatest  and  the  most  national  of  all  Italian 
poets  ever  been  much  the  favourite  of  his  countrymen.  After 
the  lapse  of  several  centuries  his  works,  like  those  of  a  second 


GHIBELLINISM.  211 

Homer,  have  had  the  honour  of  being  explained  and  illus- 
trated by  a  whole  academy  of  literati  at  the  public  expense ; 
yet  it  is  certain  that  he  is  very  far  from  having  become  the 
Homer  of  Italy.  The  power  which  he  possesses,  (and  this 
is  of  course,  in  spite  of  all  obstacles,  far  from  inconsiderable,) 
is  founded  not  upon  any  general  knowledge  or  comprehen- 
sion of  his  works,  but  upon  the  exquisite  force  of  a  few  single 
episodes  and  pictures.  There  are  among  the  poets  of  his 
o^\Ti  nation  none  who  can  sustain  the  most  remote  compari- 
son with  him  either  in  boldness  and  sublimity  of  imagina- 
tion, or  in  the  delineation  of  character :  none  have  penetrated 
so  deeply  into  the  Italian  spirit,  or  depicted  its  mysterious 
workings  with  so  forcible  a  pencil.  The  only  reproach 
which  we  can  find  against  him  in  regard  to  these  things,  is 
his  perpetual  Ghibellinism.  This  term  may  appear  unin- 
telligible, but  not  to  those  who  are  well  acquainted  with  the 
age  of  Dante.  In  those  later  periods  of  the  middle  age,  the 
Ghibelline  party  were  animated  by  designs  which  aimed  at 
nothing  but  the  establishment  of  merely  worldly  dominion, 
and  conducted  every  enterprise  in  which  they  were  engaged 
with  a  spirit  of  pride,  haughtiness,  and  harshness,  of  which 
if  we  w^ould  form  an  idea  we  must  study  the  histories  and 
monuments  of  the  time.  Even  in  the  most  modern  times 
we  have  had  no  want  of  Ghibellines,  men  who  expect  the 
whole  salvation  of  mankind  from  dominion  founded  entirely 
upon  worldly  principles,  and  who  are  willing  altogether  to 
deny  the  power  of  that  unseen  influence,  which  is,  however, 
sure  to  make  its  existence  to  be  felt  upon  every  proper  occa- 
sion. But  these  Ghibellines  of  a  more  modern  and  an  over 
refined  age,  are  chiefly  characterized  by  the  docility  and 
submissiveness  with  which  they  render  themselves  up  as 
weak  masses,  ready  to  assume  any  shape  which  it  may 
please  that  despotism  to  impress,  whose  dignity  is  increased 
in  their  eyes  by  every  new  infliction  of  its  oppressiveness. 
The  old  Ghibellines  of  Dante's  day  were  equally  ambitious, 
but  in  their  time  pride  and  heroic  strength  were  more  com- 
mon things,  and  the  numbers  of  rival  combatants,  and  the 
collisions  of  great  characters  were  sufficient  to  prevent  con- 
sequences similar  to  those  with  which  we  are  now  acquainted. 
Then  there  existed  a  terrible  anarchy,  an  universal  struggle 
and  ferment  of  mighty  characters  and  powers,  but  these  had 


212  THE  LATJRA  OF  PETRARCH. 

not  been  followed  by  that  sleep  of  uniformity  and  lethargy 
which  is  not  only  the  consequence  and  the  curse,  but  the 
ministering  opportunity  also,  and  the  deadliest  instrument  of 
despotism.  The  Ghibelline  harshness  appears  in  Dante  in 
a  form  noble  and  dignified ;  but  although  it  may  perhaps  do 
no  injury  to  the  outward  beauty,  it  certainly  mars  in  a  very 
considerable  degree  the  internal  charm  of  his  poetry.  His 
chief  defect  is,  in  a  word,  a  want  of  gentle  feelings.  But 
these  are  mere  spots  upon  the  sun,  and  must  not  diminish 
our  admiration  for  this  greatest  of  all  Italian  and  of  all  Chris- 
tian poets. 

I  have  in  one  of  my  former  lectures  indicated  the  proper 
situation  in  which  we  should  view  the  character  of  Petrarch, 
when  I  took  notice  of  the  rich  finishing  which  it  was  his 
fortune  to  bestow  upon  that  love-poetry  of  several  different 
nations  which  has  already  passed  under  our  review.  His 
elegant  productions  belong  in  truth  altogether  to  that  class, 
and  we  must  compare  his  writings  with  the  amatory  pro- 
ductions of  the  old  Spanish  and  German  poets,  before  we 
can  judge  rightly  of  his  merits,  or  even  discover  what  was 
the  leading  characteristic  of  his  genius.  Petrarch  is  distin- 
guished from  the  other  love-poets  of  the  middle  age,  by 
greater  skill  in  composition,  and  by  a  more  intellectual  and 
Platonic  turn  of  sentiment.  There  have  not,  indeed,  been 
wanting  some  among  his  admirers,  who  have  gone  so  far  as 
to  maintain,  that  his  Laura  was  no  real  mistress,  but  merely 
a  fanciful  personification  of  loveliness.  Unfortunately  for 
this  hypothesis  there  still  exist  abundant  proofs  in  the  church 
records,  not  only  that  Laura  was  a  real  woman,  but  that  she 
was  a  wife  and  the  mother  of  a  very  large  family.  It  is 
true,  however,  that  over  and  above  the  praises  of  this  lady, 
Petrarch  has  introduced  a  great  deal  of  matter  which  cannot 
be  any  thing  else  than  allegorical ;  this  is  often  too  evident 
to  admit  of  any  sort  of  doubt,  and  is  moreover,  as  I  have  be- 
fore observed,  perfectly  in  character  with  the  spirit  of  all  the 
poetry  of  the  middle  ages.  As  a  versifier  and  as  an  impro- 
ver of  language,  Petrarch  is  entitled  to  be  considered  as  one 
of  the  very  first  artists  who  have  ever  made  use  of  any  Ro- 
manic dialect. 

Boccaccio  was  of  as  much  use  in  polishing  the  prose  as 
Petrarch  in  polishing  the  poetry  of  his  country :  the  only 


NEW  STYLE  OF  COMPOSITION.  213 

fault  in  his  composition  is  a  love  of  long  and  intricate  peri- 
ods ;  from  which,  indeed,  with  the  single  exception  of  Ma- 
chiavelli,  no  great  Italian  writer  is  free. 

Each  of  these  three  Florentine  poets,  Dante,  Petrarch,  and 
Boccaccio,  was  the  discoverer  of  a  new  path,  the  former  of 
a  new  style  of  composition.  The  first  was  master  of  Alle- 
gorical, the  second  of  Lyrical  poetry ;  the  third  was  the 
founder  of  the  Novel  and  the  Romance,  and  composed  for 
the  most  part  in  prose,  though  many  of  his  best  fictions  are 
occasionally  adorned  by  poetry.  Each  of  the  three  had  a 
host  of  followers  in  his  own  department.  But  the  genius  of 
Dante  was  one  of  so  very  peculiar  a  cast  that  he  was  far 
from  being  well-fitted  to  be  a  model  of  imitation  ;  and  the 
crowds  of  sonneteers  and  novelists  who  followed  in  the  tracks 
of  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio,  were  such,  that  both  of  these 
kinds  of  writing,  associated  with  the  ideas  of  repetition  and 
satiety,  soon  became  wearisome  in  the  extreme.  The  fifteenth 
century  was  already  well  advanced  before  the  Italians,  con- 
vinced that  by  persisting  in  these  species  of  writing,  no  far- 
ther laurels  were  to  be  gained,  resolved  to  create  for  them- 
selves a  proper  chivalrous  poetry,  and  to  desert  for  ever  the 
Greek  mythology  and  Trojan  fable,  which  Boccaccio  had 
introduced  into  the  only  productions  of  this  sort  with  which 
they  had  as  yet  been  acquainted.  The  first  predecessor  of 
Ariosto,  whose  name  has  become  celebrated,  was  the  Flo- 
rentine Pulci.  Of  a  poet  so  well  acquainted  with  the  an- 
cient writers,  and  living  with  and  admired  by  the  Medici 
and  their  polished  courtiers,  not  a  little  might  have  been  ex- 
pected. But  I  fear  his  work  itself  is  not  fitted  to  fulfil  these 
hopes.  It  is  one  of  those  in  which  sportiveness  and  wit  are 
introduced  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  poet  to  ridicule 
himself,  and  thereby  induce  his  readers  to  overlook  the  more 
lightly  his  want  of  poetical  power,  or  the  want  of  probability 
and  connection  in  the  incidents  of  his  fable.  In  the  narra- 
tive it  is  not  easy  to  discover  what  parts  are  serious,  and 
what  written  in  the  spirit  of  parody ;  besides,  the  wit  itself  is 
so  purely  local  and  Florentine,  that  we  can  make  very  little 
of  it,  so  that  the  work  is  chiefly  valuable  as  a  proof  how 
very  little  the  genius  of  Italians  was  imbued  by  nature  with 
the  true  feelings  of  the  romantic. 

A  far  more  successful  attempt  was  that  of  Boiardo,  the 


214         CHIVALROUS  POETRY  OF  ITALY. 

immediate  predecessor  of  Ariosto,  whose  imperfect  poem  that 
masterly  genius  at  first  intended  only  to  complete,  but  which 
he  has  since  become  the  chief  instrument  of  throwing  into 
utter  oblivion.  Ariosto  does  not  receive  among  those  ac- 
quainted with  the  sources  from  which  he  drew,  any  credit 
for  that  invention  and  extravagant  fulness  of  fancy  which  we 
hear  very  commonly  ascribed  to  him.  The  whole  body  of 
his  tales  and  fictions  is  to  be  found  in  his  predecessors,  and 
that  too  set  forth  with  a  power  of  painting  not  at  all  inferior 
to  his.  The  superiority  of  Ariosto  consists  in  the  inimitable 
polish,  lightness,  and  grace  of  his  language  and  versifica- 
tion, and  he  has  besides  derived  no  small  advantage  from  the 
skilful  use  which  he  has  made  of  Homer,  Ovid,  and  some 
other  poets  of  antiquity. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  chivalrous  poetry  of  the 
Italians  attained  its  ftill  perfection,  not  in  Florence,  but  in 
Lombardy,  where  the  Gothic  style  of  architecture  had  also 
been  introduced,  and  where  the  style  of  painting  bore  con^ 
siderable  resemblance  to  that  of  the  Germans,  or  at  least  was 
less  remote  from  it  than  the  painting  of  Florence  or  of  Rome. 
We  need  only  run  over  the  names  of  the  chief  old  states  of 
Italy,  in  order  to  see  how  infinitely  less  prevalent  the  spirit 
of  chivalry,  and  its  moral,  intellectual,  and  poetical  influ- 
ences were  in  that  country,  than  among  the  other  polished 
nations  of  the  west.  In  Florence  the  spirit  of  the  people 
became  at  a  very  early  period  entirely  democratic.  In  Ve- 
nice the  ruling  principle  was  that  of  commerce,  and  both 
manners  and  tastes  had  more  in  common  with  the  orientals 
and  the  Greeks  than  with  the  Gothic  west.  In  Naples  the 
spirit  of  chivalry  was  never,  after  the  Norman  period,  alto- 
gether  extinct ;  but  a  succession  of  unfortunate  events,  the 
rule  of  foreign  dynasties,  frequent  changes  of  government, 
and  various  other  causes,  combined  to  prevent  that  state  from 
taking  such  a  part  as  it  should  have  done  in  the  intellectual 
cultivation  of  the  north  of  Italy.  In  Rome,  the  centre  of 
ecclesiastical  affairs,  more  attention  was  bestowed  upon  those 
splendid  arts  of  imitation  subservient  to  the  ornament  of  the 
church,  than  upon  chivalrous  poetry.  If  any  national  feel- 
ings were  ever  excited  among  the  Romans,  they  commonly 
took  quite  a  contrary  direction,  and  evaporated  in  empty 
dreams  about  the  re-establishment  of  the  Republic,  and  tho 


ITALIAN  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  215 

restoration  of  the  city  to  her  ancient  glory ;  a  specimen  of 
which  we  may  find  in  those  mad  schemes  of  Rienzi,  of 
which  Petrarch  himself  was  both  an  admirer  and  a  partaker. 

These  seem  to  have  been  the  causes  which  prevented  the 
spirit  of  chivalry  from  obtaining  any  power  over  the  more 
early  poetry  of  the  Italians ;  a  poetry  which  has  attained  the 
greatest  perfection  of  development,  and  which  has  become, 
as  it  were,  a  common  possession  of  the  whole  of  cultivated 
Europe.  And  such  seem  to  have  been  the  circumstances 
which  may  account  for  that  leaning  to  the  antique,  and  to 
philosophy,  which  can  be  discerned  in  the  national  poetry 
of  no  contemporary  people. 

The  fifteenth  century  was  in  Italy  adorned  by  painting 
much  more  than  by  poetry.  The  prosperity  of  this  art  was 
commenced  in  this  century,  and  it  continued  to  flourish  down 
till  the  middle  of  the  next.  Next  to  the  revival  of  ancient 
learning,  the  age  of  the  Medici,  or  of  Leo  X.  has  been  prin- 
cipally indebted  to  art  for  its  glory.  At  a  period  consider- 
ably earlier  than  this,  it  is  true  certain  painters  of  Italy 
began  to  make  some  use  of  those  fragments  of  ancient  art 
which  were  continually  before  their  eyes.  They  learned 
some  notions  of  accurate  drawing,  and  something  of  human 
anatomy,  and  they  could  not  avoid  inhaling  along  with  these 
some  ideas  of  the  beauty  of  form  and  the  sublimity  of  expres- 
sion. But  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  antique  was 
very  rare,  and  many  of  the  first  and  greatest  masters  were 
entirely  deficient  in  it.  And  even  among  those  who  under- 
stood it  the  most  scientifically,  no  attempts  were  ever  made 
at  strict  imitation  of  the  antique.  When  that  came  once  to 
be  in  fashion,  it  is  singular  but  true,  that  painting  was  al- 
ready on  the  decline.  In  the  early  stage  of  its  progress  this 
art  had  acquired  among  the  Italians  a  new  and  distinct  char- 
acter of  its  own,  founded  upon  the  predominance  of  Christian 
ideas  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  national  partialities  on 
the  other.  Under  the  influence  of  both  of  these  species  of 
inspiration,  this  art  acquired  a  glory  which  was  at  that  time 
unrivalled  by  the  sister  art  of  poetry.  What  poet  of  those 
times  can  we  for  a  moment  compare  with  Raphael  ?  The 
poetry  was  less  original  than  the  painting.  The  restoration 
of  classical  learning,  and  the  wide  circulation  of  so  many 
illustrious  works  heretofore  little  known,  produced  their  na- 


216  DECLINE   OF  THE  GERMAN  LANGUAGE. 

tural  effects  in  giving  rise  to  a  strong  spirit  of  imitation. 
The  appearances  of  this  manifested  themselves  very  speed- 
ily in  a  manner  by  no  means  happy,  among  all  the  Euro- 
pean nations,  but  first  of  all  in  Italy.  Even  the  greatest 
geniuses  could  not  remain  entirely  free  from  the  unfortunate 
influence ;  Camoens  and  Tasso,  the  two  first  of  modern  epic 
poets,  would,  I  have  no  doubt,  have  unfolded  their  talents  in 
a  manner  much  more  powerful,  free,  and  beautiful,  had  they 
been  utterly  ignorant  of  Virgil,  and  written  without  having 
before  their  eyes  the  necessity  of  adhering  to  a  precedent. 
The  revival  of  ancient  letters  was  injurious,  in  yet  another 
manner,  to  poetry  and  to  language  itself  The  fashion  of 
writing,  and  of  writing  poetry  too,  in  Latin  became  so  uni- 
versal, that  it  gave  rise  to  great  neglect  of  the  vernacular 
dialects.  Next  to  Italy,  Germany,  in  which  classical  studies 
were  immediately  emlDraced  with  unrivalled  ardour,  was 
the  greatest  sufferer ;  not  a  few  true  and  excellent  poets 
were,  in  consequence  of  their  taste  for  Latin,  lost  to  their 
ovni  language  and  nation.  For  it  was  not  till  long  after  this 
time  that  men  became  satisfied  that  the  only  poetry  which 
has  any  power  over  a  people,  is  that  composed  in  its  own 
tongue.  Under  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  himself  a  lover 
of  German  poetry,  and  himself  a  German  poet,  a  crow^n  was 
publicly  bestowed  on  a  poet  who  wrote  in  Latin,  but  no 
similar  distinction  fell  to  the  share  of  those  who  made  use 
of  their  mother  tongue.  Even  the  plays  represented  before 
the  court  were  commonly  written  in  Latin.  The  evident  de- 
cline and  corruption  of  our  German  language,  so  different 
from  what  its  early  flourishing  condition  might  have  led  us 
to  expect,  have  been  in  general  ascribed  to  the  convulsions 
and  civil  tumults  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  these  must  have  greatly  increased 
the  evil;  but  the  corruption  of  our  language  is  quite  appa- 
rent in  writers  who  composed  previous  to  the  Reformation, 
and  who  must  indeed  have  received  their  education  at  a 
time  when  those  alarming  events  of  which  I  have  above 
spoken,  had  not  even  been  dreamed  of  The  truth  is,  that 
the  primary  cause  of  the  evil  is  to  be  sought  for  in  that  ever- 
increasing  rage  for  Latinity,  which  induced  all  those  writers 
who  were  capable  of  improving  the  living  language,  to  con- 
sider it  as  below  them  to  make  use  of  any  other  than  the 


MISUSE  OF  ANCIENT  LITERATURE.  217 

dead.  In  Germany,  where  no  great  works  had  as  yet  been 
produced,  the  effects  of  this  fashion  were  of  course  far  more 
injurious  than  in  Italy,  where  there  existed  the  writings  of 
those  three  great  Florentines,  and  where  the  language  had, 
in  consequence  of  their  labours,  acquired  a  form  and  stand- 
ard from  which  no  succeeding  authors  could  ever  very  widely 
depart. 

The  fault  of  all  this  lies  by  no  means  on  the  literature 
of  antiquity,  but  on  the  use,  or  rather  on  the  misuse,  to 
which  men  applied  its  treasures.  The  prodigious  extension 
of  historical  science,  and,  through  it,  of  every  other  species 
of  knowledge, — an  introduction  to  so  many  fountains  of  in- 
formation, and  so  many  glorious  monuments  of  art  and  re- 
finement,— these  things  constituted  in  themselves  a  great 
and  an  invaluable  good.  But  we  shall  be  greatly  mistaken 
if  we  believe  that  this  abundant  harvest  weis  unmingled  with 
tares ;  and  our  expectations  must  have  been  far  too  sanguine 
if  we  had  hoped  that  such  a  hidden  treasure  could  be  dis- 
covered, and  those  that  found  it  be  guilty  of  no  absurdities 
in  their  first  methods  of  applying  it.  The  spirit  of  the  mo- 
dern Europeans  is  much  more  the  same  throughout  the  dif- 
ferent centuries  of  our  period,  than  might  at  first  sight  be 
imagined.  Every  where  I  observe  the  same  misdirected 
passion  which  leads  them  to  fasten  upon  every  new  and 
great  addition  to  their  inheritance  of  knowledge,  as  if  that 
alone  were  worthy  of  more  attention  than  the  whole  of  their 
previous  possessions,  to  pursue  it  with  restless  avidity,  and 
forget  in  their  admiration  of  it  every  thing  besides,  to  apply 
the  new  ideas  to  subjects  the  most  foreign  from  them,  and, 
in  short,  to  become  blind  to  all  but  one  point — ^till  after  this 
ferment  of  extravagance  has  subsided,  things  at  last  find 
their  natural  level,  and  the  new  takes  its  place  among  the 
old,  without  attempting  any  longer  to  exclude  it.  Like  the 
revolutions  of  the  political  world,  those  of  the  world  of  let- 
ters are  attended  by  violent  convulsions,  and  the  shattering 
of  venerable  institutions,  and  followed  by  periods  of  lethargy, 
which  often  go  far  to  destroy  the  good  to  which  they  might 
otherwise  have  given  birth.  In  the  age  of  the  crusades, 
when  the  Western  Europeans  were  introduced  to  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  science  of  the  Arabians,  and  the  philos- 
ophy of  Aristotle,  when  the  different  nations  of  the  world 

19 


218  EPOCH  OF  EUROPEAN  SCIENCE. 

were  brought  into  contact  with  each  other  after  a  separation 
of  many  centuries,  it  might  have  seemed  no  great  excess  of 
enthusiasm  to  expect  that  a  mighty  regeneration  of  intellect 
should  have  been  the  result  of  such  an  era.  But  it  is  suffi- 
ciently evident,  that  the  effects  of  all  these  circumstances 
upon  the  spirit  of  the  thirteenth  century  were  insignificant, 
indeed,  when  compared  with  what  the  most  rational  might 
have  looked  for.  Their  inmiediate  and  most  general  con- 
sequence was  a  pervading  spirit  of  sectarianism,  which  at 
first  confined  its  influence  to  the  barbarous  schools  of  the 
day,  but  soon  insinuated  itself  into  the  church,  and  through 
her  into  the  state,  and  into  private  life.  Among  all  the  sud- 
denly enriched  and  intellectually  fruitful  periods  of  Euro- 
pean history,  the  most  brilliant  is,  perhaps,  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. It  was  then  that  the  systematic  use  of  the  compass 
■vvas  adopted;  it  was  then  that  a  long  series  of  painful  voy- 
ages and  unsuccessful  attempts  was  at  last  crowned  with  a 
a  full  discovery  of  the  way  to  India  and  America;  and  it 
was  then  that  tne  at  once  astonished  and  matured  mind  of 
man  became  acquainted  with  the  true  extent  and  shape  of 
the  earth,  his  habitation ;  it  was  at  the  same  period,  that  the 
hidden  stores  of  ancient  literature  were  laid  open,  and  that, 
in  the  art  of  printing,  the  most  powerful  of  all  instruments, 
both  for  preserving  and  enlarging  human  knowledge,  was 
invented.  Such  accumulation  of  unexampled  advantages 
might  well  be  contemplated  with  the  profoundest  feelings  of 
astonishment  and  admiration.  But  as  I  have  already  hinted, 
and  as  I  mean  yet  more  fully  to  illustrate,  the  old  cause  of 
misapplication  attached  itself  to  this  sudden  revelation  of 
weahh,  with  a  pertinacity  no  less  striking  than  it  had  on 
former  occasions  exhibited.  The  third  universal  revolution 
in  the  history  of  science,  and  the  spirit  of  modern  Europe, 
lies  nearer  our  own  times.  The  prodigious  improvements 
in  the  mathematics,  and,  through  them,  in  all  branches  of 
natural  philosophy  which  took  place  in  the  seventeenth,  and 
which  have  been  carried  on  still  farther  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  extension  of  all  mechanical  knowledge,  and  the 
improvements  in  technical  expedients,  have  been  such  as  to 
give  the  direction  of  human  life  an  almost  entirely  different 
appearance.  Who  can  deny  that  this  knowledge  is  in  itself 
ii<2Tiified  and  admirable,  and  that  nothing  can  be  more  ele- 


CONTEST  OF  THE  OLD  AND  FOREIGN.  219 

vating  to  the  human  mind  than  a  consciousness  of  superior- 
ity over  the  corporeal  and  sensible  world,  so  well  harmoniz- 
ing with  the  original  destination  of  our  species  ?  Had  but 
this  dominion  over  the  external  world  been  united  with  a 
correspondent  dominion  over  ourselves — had  but  those  phy- 
sical and  mathematical  modes  of  thinking  which  noAv  began 
to  exert  so  powerful  an  influence  not  only  over  intellect,  but 
also  over  manners,  been  kept  in  their  proper  sphere  and  sta- 
tion, we  should  have  had  no  reason  to  complain.  The  con- 
sequences of  these  modes  of  thinking,  and  of  the  philosophy 
to  which  they  have  given  rise,  in  regard  to  religion,  moral- 
ity, political  and  individual  life,  have  been  such,  that  the 
common  opinion  is,  I  believe,  already  very  much  against 
them,  and  that  in  a  few  years  no  farther  difference  of  opinion 
respecting  their  tendency  can  be  expected  to  exist. 

I  return  to  the  fifteenth  century.  I  have  already  men- 
tioned the  injury  which  the  exclusive  predilection  for  the 
literature  and  language  of  antiquity  did,  by  cheeking  the 
progress  of  improvement  both  in  the  vernacular  languages 
of  modern  Europe,  and  in  the  poetry  therein  embodied. 
The  errors  and  absurdities  of  this  period  should  astonish  us 
the  less,  when  we  reflect  that  in  truth  the  whole  history  of 
modern  intellect  consists  of  little  more  than  a  narrative  of 
one  continuous  contest  between  the  old  and  foreign — invalu- 
able, in  so  far  as  form  and  knowledge  are  concerned — and 
the  new,  the  peculiar,  and  the  national,  from  which  the  whole 
life  and  spirit  of  our  active  and  effectual  literature  and  poetry 
must  ever  be  derived. 

I  think  it  extremely  probable,  that  several  of  the  modern 
Latinists  of  the  fifteenth  century,  in  Italy,  were  actuated  by 
a  real  desire  of  banishing  the  vulgar  dialect,  and  re-estab- 
lishing the  old  language  of  Rome  in  its  life  and  activity. 
The  mythology  and  language  of  antiquity  were  not  merely 
applied  with  great  want  of  taste  to  new  and  Christian  sub- 
jects ;  the  abuse  went  so  far  as  to  deserve  the  name  of  im- 
piety itself,  for  it  is  certain  that  many  writers  conceived  it  to 
be  vulgar  to  talk  of  the  Deity  in  the  language  of  the  Bible, 
and  revived  the  plural  "  gods"  of  the  classics.  The  manners 
and  modes  of  life  of  antiquity  found  most  zealous  imitators 
among  the  ecclesiastics  of  the  Christian  metropolis,  nor 
were  there  wanting  some  who  extended  their  partiality  not 


220  MACHIAVELLI. 

©niy  to  the  politics,  birt  to  the  religion  of  the  old  republics. 
But  these  errors  never  led  to  any  serious  consequences,  and 
therefore  it  is  no  wonder  their  existence  has  well  nigh 
been  forgotten.  The  intimate  knowledge  of  antiquity,  and 
decidedly  Roman  prejudices  of  one  great  writer  of  this  age, 
Machiavelli,  have  produced  effects  much  more  lasting  than 
the  dreams  of  those  more  idle  enthusiasts.  He  is  the  only 
writer,  not  merely  of  Italy,  but  of  modern  Europe,  who  can 
sustain  a  comparison  in  style  and  skill  with  the  first  histo- 
rians of  antiquity.  Powerful,  simple,  and  straightforward, 
like  Csesar,  he  combines  the  depth  and  rich  reflection  of 
Tacitus,  with  a  clearness  and  precision  to  which  that  great 
master  was  a  stranger.  He  has  followed  no  one  writer  as 
his  model,  but  rather  seems  to  be  thoroughly  penetrated 
with  the  spirit  of  antiquity,  and  to  write  as  if  under  the  influ- 
ence of  a  second  nature,  with  that  strength,  propriety,  and 
life,  which  are  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  ancients. 
The  art  of  his  composition  seems  to  be  quite  involuntary ; 
his  concern  appears  to  extend  no  farther  than  the  thought. 
But  how  are  we  to  judge  or  to  explain  the  political  system 
of  this  great  genius,  which  has  attained  in  modern  times  so 
unfortunate  a  predominance?  The  portrait  which  he  has 
given  of  an  unprincipled  tyrant,  set  forth  as  the  example  and 
manual  of  all  princes  and  governments,  is  justified  by  some, 
on  the  ground  that  Machiavelli  meant  only  to  place  before 
the  eyes  of  the  world  a  representation  of  the  corrupted  con- 
dition of  the  age  and  country  in  which  he  lived,  leaving 
such  a  picture  to  produce  its  own  natural  effects  upon  the 
minds  of  those  who  might  contemplate  it.  Perhaps  it  may 
be  better  explained  by  considering,  that  though  Machiavelli 
was  both  a  politician  and  a  moralist,  his  true  and  most  es- 
sential character  was  that  of  a  patriot,  I  believe  that  his 
object  was  to  inspire  the  great  princes  of  Italy  with  the  am- 
bition of  giving  liberty  to  his  country ;  and  that,  in  his  opi- 
nion, this  was  an  object  which  ought  to  be  pursued,  even 
although  it  should  be  absolutely  necessary  to  make  use  of 
those  doubtful,  or  even  immoral  means,  by  which  others  had 
effected  its  degradation  and  subjection.  He  thought  that  the 
enemies  of  Italy  should  be  fought  with  their  own  arms,  and 
that  nothing  was  unfair  which  might  be  of  advantage  to  his 
country.     The  shrewdness  of  his  judgment  is  well  exempli- 


HIS  WRITINGS.  221 

fied  in  the  short  parallel  between  the  French  and  the  Ger- 
mans, which  he  has  left  behind  him.  With  a  truly  admi- 
rable acuteness,  he  shows  that  the  power  of  the  empire  was 
in  his  day  vastly  overrated,  and  demonstrates  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  power  of  the  French  king-  was  most  formid- 
ably on  the  increase.  However  profound  and  striking 
Machiavelli's  characteristic  of  the  two  nations  may  be,  he 
cannot  be  accused  of  having  expressed  it  with  any  appear- 
ance of  flattery.  The  one  nation,  on  the  contrary,  are  satir- 
ized in  the  most  unequivocal  terms  for  faithlessness,  vanity, 
and  treachery,  which  he  seems  to  consider  as  inseparable  from 
them ;  while  he  reproaches  the  other  with  equal  bitterness 
for  that  perverse  love  of  freedom  which,  manifesting  itself  in 
nothing  but  disunion  and  distrust,  had  already,  in  his  time, 
sapped  the  foundations  of  their  empire,  and  whose  baneful 
effects  have  been  more  openly  displayed  in  the  sequel. 

His  opinions  concerning  the  other  nations  of  Europe 
were  such  as  the  fortunes  of  Italy,  Florence,  and  himseh 
might  well  excuse.  But  the  main  principle  which  he  has 
defended,  namely,  that  it  is  proper  to  make  use  of  immoral 
means  in  order  to  attain  a  good  end,  admits  of  no  complete 
justification.  In  truth,  the  danger  to  Italy  and  to  the  world, 
consisted  far  less  in  the  iniquitous  schemes  of  a  few  petty 
tyrants,  than  in  the  wide  extension  of  those  pernicious  prin- 
ciples upon  which  these  indeed  acted,  but  to  which  the  mis- 
directed intellect  of  this  refined  Florentine  gave  a  system  and 
consistency  which  they  had  never  before  possessed. 

The  chief  fault  of  Machiavelli  consists,  however,  not  in 
his  defence  of  the  principle  that  the  end  sanctifies  the  means, 
but  in  this,  that  he  was  the  first  who  introduced  into  mo- 
dern and  Christian  Europe  the  fashion  of  reasoning  and  de- 
ciding on  politics  exactly  as  if  Christianity  had  had  no 
existence,  or  rather  as  if  there  had  been  no  such  thing  as  a 
Deity  or  moral  justice  in  the  world.  Before  his  day,  the 
common  faith  of  Christianity  had  formed  a  bond  of  connec- 
tion, and  been  considered  as  the  fundamental  principle  of  all 
government  among  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  the  peoples 
of  Christendom  regarding  themselves  as  forming  in  some 
sort  one  family.  The  common  opinion  among  mankind 
was,  that  as  they  themselves  ought  to  serve  their  God,  so 
it  was  their  duty  also  to  love  and  obey  the  princes  appointed 

19* 


222  HIS  ERRONEOUS  OPINIONS. 

by  heaven  to  rule  over  them ;  and  that  in  this  sense  the 
right  of  kings  was  divine.  All  the  doctrines  of  legislature, 
law,  and  government,  still  reposed  upon  the  invisible  foun- 
dation of  the  church.  Of  all  these  things,  of  the  whole  do- 
mestic and  political  arrangements  of  European  life,  Machia- 
velli  takes  no  notice  ;  he  is  not  contented  with  merely  writ- 
ing like  an  ancient ;  his  thoughts  are  all  fashioned  upon  the 
same  model ;  he  is  an  ancient  politician  of  the  most  decisive 
and  unhesitating  order ;  he  believes  that  power  is  the  sole 
measure  of  right,  with  a  faith  that  might  have  been  worthy 
of  Rome  herself  in  her  most  violent  days  of  conquest  and 
usurpation.  Justice  and  truth  he  considers  as  mere  super- 
fluous ornaments,  and  has  no  real  respect  excepting  for  in- 
tellectual strength  and  ability.  That  moral  right  should 
make  no  appearance  in  his  writings  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at,  since  it  is  his  plan  to  regard  men  as  if  they  owed  no 
submission  to  any  thing  beyond  themselves,  as  if  they  had 
no  connection  with  their  Maker.  As  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  individual  worth  and  virtue,  so  it  is  quite  evident 
there  can.  be  no  political  justice,  among  those  who  dis- 
believe the  existence  of  a  Deity.  Without  that  belief  the 
utmost  that  can  be  hoped  for  is  deceitfulness,  hypocrisy,  and 
hollowness  of  heart.  When  we  are  impressed  with  a  sense 
of  the  existence  of  God,  the  whole  of  our  thoughts  and  prin- 
ciples hare  acquired  a  dignity  to  which  we  could  not  other- 
wise aspire.  The  visible  is  every  where  dependent  upon 
the  unseen ;  and  as  the  body  is  moved  and  regulated  by  the 
soul,  so  are  men,  nations,  and  states,  held  together  by  the 
belief  and  the  reverence  of  the  Godhead.  The  moment  we 
take  away  this  soul,  this  internal  and  universal  principle  ol 
life,  the  whole  composition  is  loosened  and  destroyed ;  if  we 
obscure  the  light,  and  obstruct  its  influence  upon  the  whole, 
the  individual  members  of  the  organic,  or  of  the  political 
body,  may  still  preserve  some  power  of  life  with  them,  but 
this  life  will  be  narrow,  separate,  insignificant,  misdirected, 
and  destructive,  rather  than  beneficial.  It  will  form  a  prin- 
ciple of  disunion,  not  a  bond  of  harmony.  When  that  chain 
of  morality  and  religion,  by  which  states  and  nations  are 
cormected  together,  has  once  fairly  been  broken,  the  destruc- 
tive poisons  of  darkness,  anarchy,  and  despotism,  begin  im- 


INVENTION  OF  PRINTING,  ETC.  223 

mediately  to  operate,  and  vice  is  ever  ready  to  occupy  the 
deserted  station  of  virtue. 

The  political  disunion  and  corruptions  of  Europe,  whose 
influence,  in  spite  of  the  steady  resistance  of  many  excellent 
and  truly  Christian  princes,  has  been  ever  on  the  increase, 
cannot  indeed  be  accounted  for  by  the  abilities,  however  great 
and  however  misapplied,  of  any  one  individual ;  the  seeds  of 
these  evils  lay  much  deeper  than  this.  Still,  however,  he 
who  devotes  his  talents  to  give  principle,  clearness,  and  form, 
to  any  existing  engine  of  Avickedness — he  who  renders  its 
operations  systematic,  and  its  effects  consequently  more  per- 
nicious, is  an  enemy  to  mankind ;  and  in  so  far,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  deny  that  the  indignation  of  posterity  has  been,  in 
some  degree  at  least,  the  merited  fate  of  Macliiavelli. 

The  two  great  discoveries  of  the  fifteenth  century,  print- 
ing and  the  compass,  were  attended  by  several  others  which 
have  had  no  inconsiderable  influence ;  such  were  the  use  of 
gunpowder  and  the  manufacture  of  paper.  As  inventions, 
both  of  these  belong  to  a  much  earlier  period,  but  their  in- 
fluence began  now  with  their  first  application  to  purposes  of 
practical  use.  The  discoveries  of  this  period,  taken  collec- 
tively, have  been  sufficient  to  give  a  totally  new  appearance 
to  human  society.  The  distance  by  which  those  nations  of 
antiquity  which  were  acquainted  with  the  use  of  iron,  and 
possessed,  along  with  this,  more  or  less  knowledge  of  writing 
and  of  the  finer  metals,  were  separated  from  those  barbarians 
who  had  no  acquaintance  with  these  means  of  connection 
between  man  and  the  earth,  between  nation  and  nation,  be- 
tween antiquity  and  posterity — these  first  instruments  of  the 
refinement  and  development  of  our  species ;  this  immeasura- 
ble distance  is  scarcely  greater  than  that  which  separates  the 
periods  prior  to  the  invention  of  printing  and  the  compass, 
from  those  which  have  succeeded. 

Even  in  the  history  of  these  inventions  we  find  sufficient 
proof  that  the  use  to  which  men  apply  their  discoveries  is  ot 
far  greater  importance  than  the  discoveries  themselves.  The 
compass  had  long  before  this  time  been  known  to  other  na- 
tions, and  yet  neither  had  the  old  continent  been  circumna- 
vigated, nor  the  new  discovered.  Printing  and  paper  had 
long  before  this  period  been  used  in  China,  for  the  purpose 
of  multiplying  gazettes,  notices,  and  visiting-cards,  without 


224  INVENTION  OF  GUNPOWDER. 

imparting  any  principle  of  activity  to  the  benumbed  spirit  of 
the  Chinese. 

The  invention  of  gunpowder  was  regarded,  even  after  its 
use  had  been  universally  adopted,  as  altogether  injurious  and 
corrupting.  Not  only  did  poets,  such  as  Ariosto,  condemn 
it  as  an  unhallowed  invention,  the  enemy  of  personal  bra- 
very, and  the  future  extirpator  of  all  chivalry ;  the  same  out- 
cry was  repeated  by  the  gravest  generals  and  statesmen  of 
the  times.  Yet  nothing  could  be  more  silly  than  these  com- 
plaints ;  true  valour  and  virtue  are  always  sure  to  find  suffi- 
cient room  to  display  themselves.  With  different  manners, 
and  in  a  new  form  of  war,  the  modern  even  the  very  latest 
times,  have  witnessed  examples  of  devoted  heroism  well 
worthy  of  a  place  by  the  side  of  the  most  brilliant  achieve- 
ments of  antiquity,  or  of  the  chivalric  age.  Yet  upon  the 
whole,  a  discovery,  which  has  increased  the  certainty  and 
rapidity  of  the  destructive  influences  of  war,  and  withal  ren- 
dered these  more  systematic,  cannot  be  reckoned  among  the 
most  fortunate.  In  the  very  first  age  of  its  use,  gunpowder 
did  more  harm  than  has  since  been  in  its  power.  But  for  it 
those  robberies  of  the  European  nations  which  followed  the 
first  discovery  of  America,  could  scarcely  have  been  pollu- 
ted with  so  much  blood  and  outrage.  In  this  point  of  view 
it  would  almost  seem  as  if  some  envious  demon  had  attached 
to  the  glorious  invention  of  the  compass,  an  engine  of  evil, 
by  way  of  turning  even  the  best  gifts  of  humanity  to  our  de- 
struction. 

Even  in  regard  to  the  use  of  paper,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  operations  of  printing,  as  by  its  means  extended, 
have  really  promoted  the  cause  of  science  and  intellect,  or 
conduced  to  efTects  of  a  very  opposite  description.  By  means 
of  this  cheap  material,  the  art  of  printing,  in  itself  one  of  the 
most  glorious  and  useful,  has  become  prostituted  in  times  of 
anarchy  and  revolution  to  the  speedy  and  universal  circula- 
tion of  poisonous  tracts  and  libels — things  more  destructive 
to  the  minds  of  the  uneducated,  than  ever  gunpowder  was  to 
the  bodies  of  the  undisciplined.  Perhaps  in  making  use  of 
a  somewhat  rarer  and  more  costly  material,  the  press  might 
have  remained  more  true  to  its  proper  and  original  purpose 
— the  preservation  of  the  great  monuments  of  history,  art, 
and  science.     Instead  of  this,  the  cheapness  of  the  materials 


OF  PAPER,  ETC.  225 

of  printing  has  introduced  a  dangerous  neglect  of  the  old  and 
genuine  monuments  of  human  intellect,  and  a  still  more 
dangerous  influx  of  paltry  and  superficial  compositions,  alike 

hostile  to  soundness  of  judgment,  and  purity  of  taste a  sea 

of  frothy  conceits,  and  noisy  dulness,  upon  which  the  spirit 
of  the  age  is  tossed  hither  and  thither,  not  without  great  and 
frequent  danger  of  entirely  losing  sight  of  the  compass  of 
meditation,  and  the  polar  star  of  truth. 


LECTURE  X. 


A  FEW  WORDS  UPON    THE    LITERATURE    OF  THE  NORTH  AND  EAST  OF    EU- 
ROPE,  UPON  THE    SCHOLASTIC    LEARNING    AND    GERMAN    MYSTICKS  OP 

TUE  MIDDLE  AGE. 


As  yet  we  have  been  almost  entirely  occupied  with  the 
literature  of  those  of  the  modern  nations  which  are  settled 
in  the  southern  and  western  districts  of  Europe, — the  peoples 
whose  dialects  are  either  Teutonic  or  Romanic,  or  made  up 
of  a  mixture  of  both,  the  Italians,  the  French,  the  Spaniards, 
and  the  English.  The  literature  of  these  nations  is  beyond 
all  doubt,  both  from  its  own  nature,  and  from  the  wide-spread 
influence  which  it  has  exerted,  by  far  the  most  remarkable 
and  important.  At  the  same  time  it  would  have  greatly 
gratified  myself,  and  very  much  tended  to  complete  what  it 
was  my  ambition  to  lay  before  you — I  mean  a  full  and  na- 
tional view  of  literature, — had  I  been  able  to  speak  at  length 
concerning  those  other  great  nations  which  inhabit  the  east- 
ern and  northern  parts  of  our  continent.  Every  separate  and 
independent  nation  has  the  right,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  of 
possessing  a  literature  peculiar  to  itself;  and  no  barbarism  is 
in  my  opinion  so  hurtful  as  that  which  would  oppress  the 
language  of  a  people  and  a  country,  or  do  any  thing  which 
tends  to  exclude  them  from  reaching  the  higher  orders  of 
intellectual  cultivation.  It  is  mere  prejudice,  unworthy  of 
rational  and  thinking  men,  which  leads  us  to  consider  lan- 
guages that  have  been  neglected,  or  that  are  unkno\vn  to 
ourselves,  as  incapable  of  being  brought  to  perfection.  Some 
languages,  no  doubt,  there  are,  which  are  in  a  certain  de- 
gree unfavourable  for  poetry;  a  few  which  may  perhaps  be 
almost  incompatible  with  any  high  exertions  of  that  art :  but 
I  believe  that  there  is  no  language  which  does  not  contain 
within  itself  the  elements  of  perfect  adaptation  to  all  the  re- 


GENERAL  SURVEY,  227 

ally  useful  purposes  of  life,  and  to  every  important  object  of 
scientific  writing  in  prose.  Even  although  the  literature  of 
a  particular  nation  may  have  exerted  little  influence  over 
neighbouring  peoples,  the  history  of  that  nation's  intellec- 
tual development,  as  this  stands  connected  with  its  public 
weal,  its  fortunes,  and  its  history,  is,  nevertheless,  on  its  own 
account  alone,  a  very  interesting  and  a  very  instructive  ob- 
ject of  contemplation.  Yet  all  I  can  do  in  regard  to  this 
matter  amounts  to  little  more  than  the  expression  of  my  sin- 
cere wish  that  it  had  been  within  my  power  to  carry  my 
researches  so  far,  as  -might  have  enabled  me  to  lay  before 
you  a  complete  view  of  European  literature.  For  I  am 
now  too  old  to  have  any  remaining  doubt  upon  my  mind, 
that  in  the  history  of  literature,  exactly  as  in  most  other 
things,  very  little  dependence  is  to  be  placed  upon  the  testi- 
monies and  the  opinions  of  others  respecting  matters,  wherein 
the  ignorance  of  languages  prevents  ourselves  from  being 
able  to  verify  their  statements.  I  must  therefore  be  satisfied 
with  a  few  very  general  reflections  on  these  points,  at  this 
time  Avhen,  in  considering  the  epoch  of  a  new  literature  and 
a  resurrection  of  science,  it  might  have  seemed  most  neces- 
sary for  me  to  complete  my  survey  by  a  full  examination  of 
every  nation  and  language  into  which  Europe  is  divided. 

The  most  favourable  point  of  view  from  which  such  a 
general  survey  could  be  taken  is  certainly  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury— a  period  which  forms,  as  it  were,  an  isthmus  of  con- 
nection between  the  middle  ages  and  modern  times.  So  far 
as  respects  language  itself,  and  the  very  great  influence 
which  that  exerts  over  other  peoples,  the  nations  speaking 
Romanic  dialects  had  at  this  period  a  peculiar  and  very 
manifest  advantage.  These  dialects  are  so  closely  connected 
with  each  other,  and  the  mother  idiom  from  which  they  are 
all  derived,  the  Latin,  at  that  time  the  common  language  of 
the  West,  that  the  acquisition  of  any  one  of  them  is  to  those 
acquainted  with  another,  prodigiously  more  easy  than  that 
of  any  language  radically  different.  It  was  on  this  account 
that  even  in  the  middle  age  itself,  and  long  before  the  effects 
of  extended  commerce  began  to  be  felt,  the  knowledge  of 
these  dialects  became  far  more  widely  diffused  than  that  of 
the  other  northern  and  eastern  languages  of  Europe.  It 
must,  however,  be  remarked,  that  Spain  remained  at  all 


228        CULTIVATION  OF  THE  SPANIARDS. 

times  cut  off  in  some  measure  from  the  other  districts  of 
Europe,  not  more  by  geographical  position,  politics,  consti- 
tution, and  manners,  than  by  her  peculiarity  both  of  language 
and  of  intellectual  cultivation.  That  the  peculiar  language 
and  cultivation  of  the  Spaniards  have  attained  within  their 
own  limits  a  very  great  degree  of  perfection,  has  been  re- 
cognized of  late  years  with  more  justice  than  formerly.  The 
only  relic  of  the  old  prejudice  is  the  notion  so  prevalent 
among  our  critics,  that  the  excellence  of  the  Spanish  lan- 
guage and  literature  has  been  almost  entirely  confined  to 
poetry;  whereas,  as  all  well  acquainted  with  the  subject 
must  know,  one  great  advantage  of  the  Spanish  language, 
and,  I  might  add,  of  the  Spanish  national  character,  consisted 
in  this,  that  the  prose  of  that  language  was  much  more  early, 
and  had  been  much  more  excellently  developed  than  in  any 
other  of  the  Romanic  dialects.  The  Italian  language,  with 
the  single  exception  of  Machiavelli,  was  never  applied  with 
much  happiness  of  effect  to  the  purposes  of  practical  and 
political  writing.  The  attempts  at  prose  composition  in  the 
other  Romanic  dialects  were  all  extremely  unsuccessful.  The 
French  and  English  languages  first  received  a  formation 
adapted  for  practical  utility  and  political  eloquence  in  the 
seventeenth  century ;  and  perhaps  the  advantage  of  so  apply- 
ing them  has  always  been  confined  to  the  capitals  and  the 
higher  orders  more  than  was  the  case  with  the  Spanish.  At 
a  very  early  period,  indeed,  the  vernacular  tongue  of  Spain 
was  applied,  and  with  the  greatest  success,  to  legislation  and 
the  most  important  concerns  of  social  arrangement.  Perhaps 
the  very  separation  of  the  nation  from  the  rest  of  Europe 
may  have  very  much  contributed  to  the  early  development 
of  its  language,  which  can  boast  of  a  very  great  number  of 
well  written  histories,  and  in  which  a  manly  vein  of  elo- 
quence has  continued  even  down  to  our  own  day,  full  of  the 
most  fiery  spirit,  clear,  sharp,  and  intermingled  on  proper 
occasions  with  an  abundance  of  exquisite  wit  and  irony.  In 
philosophy  alone,  Spain  cannot  boast  of  any  names  such  as 
those  which  have  appeared  in  Italy,  Germany,  England, 
and  some  other  countries.  In  that  department  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  she  has  produced  no  truly  great  writer. 

The  German  language  has  at  all  times  been  of  more  dif- 
ficult acquisition  than  any  one  of  the  Romanic  dialects,  and 


OF  THE  GERMAN  LANGUAGE.  229 

on  that  account  the  knowledge  of  it  has  always  been  much 
more  limited.  This  ignorance  of  our  language  among  the 
other  nations,  has  been  the  origin  of  not  a  little  contempt  for 
our  literature  and  philosophy.  Yet  I  have  no  sort  of  doubt 
that  the  place  I  have  assigned  to  the  German  nation  in  this 
history  of  literature  is  one  of  which  a  careful  examination 
of  facts  will  sufficiently  manifest  the  propriety.  Although 
our  language  is  less  known  than  most  others,  yet  all  those 
who  inquire  with  any  profoundness  of  research,  either  into 
the  history  or  the  language  of  the  southern  and  western  na- 
tions, must  at  all  times  be  compelled  to  cultivate  an  acquain- 
tance with  the  German  sources  of  knowledge ;  and  these  will 
all  confess  that  along  with  German  political  institutions  and 
German  customs  of  domestic  life,  a  very  great  portion  of  the 
spirit  of  German  thought  has  also  passed  into  all  the  other 
nations  of  Europe.  A  thorough  knowledge  x>f  the  middle 
ages  and  of  their  history  is  entirely  unattainable  without  a 
knowledge  of  the  language  and  literature  of  the  Germans ; 
for  the  superiority  of  France  and  England  during  the  last 
two  hundred  years  has  not  been  more  decided  than  was  both 
the  literary  and  political  pre-eminence  of  Italy  and  Germany 
during  the  whole  period  of  the  middle  ages.  These  were, 
without  any  doubt,  at  that  time  the  two  first  countries  in  the 
world.  So  far  as  our  own  country  is  concerned,  it  might 
be  sufficient  to  mention  the  simple  fact,  that  the  art  of  print- 
ing, which  was  the  greatest  and  the  most  important  instru- 
ment of  the  revival  of  learning  in  the  fifteenth  c^itury,  and 
that  mighty  revolution  in  religion  which  gave  a  new  form 
to  the  whole  mind  of  man  in  the  sixteenth  century,  were 
both  German  in  their  origin.  But  without  going  so  far 
back,  the  truth  is,  that  if  the  German  language  be  less  hap- 
pily developed  for  the  purposes  of  business  and  political  elo- 
quence than  the  English  and  the  French,  this  defect  is  shared 
by  the  Italian  language,  and  like  it  atones  for  the  defect  in 
those  respects  by  its  peculiar  power  in  poetry.  With  regard 
to  the  higher  uses  of  science,  I  believe  it  will  be  acknow- 
ledged by  any  foreigner  acquainted  with  our  books,  that  our 
superiority  is  clear  and  decisive  over  every  language  since 
the  Greek.  In  the  imitative  arts,  wherein  the  other  polished 
nations  of  Europe  have  very  little  distinguished  themselves, 
the  Germans  occupy  a  place  next  and  near  to  the  Italians. 

20 


230  THE  SCANDINAVIANS. 

In  the  modem  literature,  which  has  sprung  up  among  the 
different  nations  of  Europe  subsequent  to  the  intellectual  con- 
vulsions of  the  sixteenth,  and  the  first  part  of  the  seventeenth 
centuries,  the  language  and  mental  cultivation  of  Germany 
have  indeed  been,  late  to  distinguish  themselves.  But,  at 
ieast  so  far  as  science,  history,  and  philosophy,  are  concern- 
ed, the  probability  is,  that  the  ktest  literature  will  be  the 
liehest  and  the  best.  The  praise  of  fertility,  at  least,  will 
not  be  refused  to  us  during  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century — a  period  in  which  the  literature  and  intellectual 
refinement  of  many  other  nations  was  either  in  a  state  of 
pause,  of  retrogression,  or  of  complete  corruption  and  decay. 
How  defective  we  still  are  in  many  particular  departments 
we  are  ourselves  extremely  well  aware ;  but  in  my  appre- 
hension the  time  is  not  now  at  any  great  distance  when  an 
acquaintance  with  the  language  and  literature  of  Germany 
will  be  looked  upon  as  indispensably  necessary  to  every  man 
of  polite  education  in  Europe. 

Of  all  the  northern  and  eastern  nations  of  Europe,  the 
Scandinavian  exerted,  during  the  middle  ages,  the  greatest 
and  the  most  immediate  influence  over  the  poetry  and  think- 
ing of  the  West.  The  influence  which  they  had  in  the  cha- 
racter of  wandering  Normans  upon  Europe,  and  its  poetry, 
has  already  been  noticed.  They  took  a  great  share  in  the 
Crusades ;  and  partook  in  every  thing  interesting,  either  in 
regard  to  reason  or  imagination,  which  was  introduced  or 
created  in  consequence  of  those  memorable  expeditions.  The 
Icelanders  traversed  every  part  of  Europe  as  scientific  navi- 
gators, and  collected  in  every  quarter  both  facts  and  fictions. 
The  oldest  pure  fountain  of  the  poetry  of  the  German  na- 
tions, and  the  whole  middle  age,  had  been  preserved  in  their 
Edda^  and  now  they  brought  back  with  them,  into  their 
northern  climate,  the  Christian  and  chivalrous  poems  of  the 
southern  Europeans.  In  many  of  these — particularly  in 
the  heroic  poems  of  the  Germans — the  resemblance  to  their 
own  northern  sagas  and  personifications  was  very  remark- 
able. These  acquisitions  they  now  transferred  into  their 
own  language  with  peculiar  delight  and  success.  Some 
parts  of  what  they  borrowed — every  thing  which  was  in  its 
origin  heathenish  and  northern,  many  particular  creations 
"Of  fancy,  and  in  general  all  of  the  wonderfiil  which  had  been 


TENETS  OF  LUTHER.  231 

derived  from  the  old  theology, — they  appropriated  to  them- 
selves with  new  force,  effect,  and  feeling,  on  account  of  their 
own  more  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Edda.  That  marvel- 
lous which  in  the  poetry  of  the  southern  peoples  had  been  a 
fleeting  and  trivial  exercise  of  fancy,  a  mere  idle  ornament, 
acquired  in  the  hands  of  northern  poets  a  deeper  sense,  a 
more  affecting  truth,  and  a  more  important  signification.  It 
was  thus  that  the  northern  versions  of  the  Niebelungen  came 
to  possess,  in  some  respects,  the  advantage  even  over  the 
German  heroic.  The  Icelanders,  in  this  manner,  and  the 
Scandinavians  in  general,  during  the  middle  age,  possessed 
a  peculiar  chivalrous  poetry  of  their  own,  destined  to  expe- 
rience the  same  fortune  with  that  of  the  other  nations  of 
Europe, — first  to  be  diluted  into  prose  romances,  and  then 
to  be  split  into  ballads.  This  last  effect  was  produced  in 
Denmark  exactly  as  in  England  and  Germany,  and  pro- 
ceeded in  a  great  measure  from  the  same  causes, — I  mean, 
from  that  interruption  which  occurred  in  the  national  tradi- 
tions and  recollections  in  consequence  of  the  great  changes 
that  occurred  both  in  the  church  and  the  state.  The  national 
poetry  was  left  to  be  maintained  by  the  common  people  alone, 
and  was  in  their  hands  mutilated,  corrupted,  and  degraded. 
I  do  not  say  this  with  any  intention  of  stigmatizing  ballads 
as  entirely  useless ;  on  the  contrary,  these  compositions  in 
England,  Scotland,  Germany,  and  Denmark,  although  every 
where  affording  but  a  faint  echo  of  the  nobler  poetry  which 
preceded  them,  are  still  worthy  of  great  attention  both  in  a 
historical  and  in  a  poetical  point  of  view.  The  old  litera- 
ture of  the  Scandinavians  was  one  common  to  the  whole  of 
the  north.  A  great  change  in  its  appearance  seems  to  have 
resulted  from  the  Reformation;  the  vernacular  historians, 
both  of  Denmark  and  Sweden,  are  full  of  complaints  con- 
cerning the  baneful  effects  produced  upon  their  native  lan- 
guages by  that  immense  influx  of  High  Dutch  books  which 
was  followed  by  the  general  adoption  of  the  tenets  of  the 
Saxon  Luther.  The  later  literature  of  Sweden,  in  particu- 
lar, is  often  alleged  by  the  critics  of  that  country  as  furnish- 
ing a  melancholy  proof,  that  even  a  nation  the  most  full  of 
character  and  feeling  is  incapable  of  creating  a  rich  and  in- 
dependent literature,  if  it  continues  to  shew  an  unceasing 
predilection  for  foreign  idioms  and  models.     The  Danish 


232  LITERATURE  OF  THE  SCANDINAVIANS. 

literature,  on  the  other  hand,  of  these  latest  years,  has  been 
rapidly  developing  itself  at  the  same  time  with  our  owti,  in 
a  manner  qnite  independent,  but  yet,  as  might  naturally  have 
been  expected,  with  a  greater  leaning  to  the  Germans  and 
the  English,  than  to  the  French. 

In  looking  back,  one  can  scarcely  help  observing  a  cer- 
tain resemblance  between  the  old  situation  of  Scandinavia 
before  the  Reformation,  and  that  of  Spain.  Each  of  these 
countries  possessed  a  high  degree  of  political  and  intellec- 
tual refinement,  and  each  remaining  apart,  as  it  were,  from 
the  rest  of  Europe,  formed  within  itself  a  complete  and  dis- 
tinct whole.  The  Normans,  like  the  Spaniards,  had  their 
share  in  the  universally  chivalrous  spirit  of  the  middle  age, 
which  was  indeed  by  no  means  foreign  to  their  own  particu- 
lar antiquities.  They  were  also  acquainted  with  the  south 
of  Europe  by  means  of  travelling.  But  neither  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  Scandinavian,  nor  those  of  the  Spanish  penin- 
sula, were  ever  engaged  in  any  commerce  with  any  of  the 
other  European  nations,  of  so  intimate  and  multifarious  a 
nature  as  that  which  connected  France  with  England  from 
the  eleventh  till  the  fifteenth,  or  Italy  with  Germany  from 
the  ninth  till  the  sixteenth  century.  The  literature  of  the 
Scandinavians  was  also  entirely  directed  to  subjects  of  na- 
tional interest,  such  as  poetry,  history,  or  the  like.  Like  the 
Spaniards  they  paid  little  attention  to  higher  departments  of 
philosophy ;  at  least  no  remarkable  work  of  a  purely  scien- 
tific nature  was  ever  produced  by  them.  It  is  quite  evident 
that  four  countries  alone  in  the  centre  of  Europe,  Italy,  Ger- 
many, France,  and  England,  as  they  have  occupied  the  first 
place  in  the  political  history  of  modern  Europe,  so  in  the 
history  of  literature  also  have  they  distinguished  themselves 
to  such  a  degree,  that  from  the  time  of  the  first  awakening 
of  the  European  intellect  under  Charlemagne,  down  to  the 
present  day,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  point  out  a  single  great 
incident  in  the  annals  of  philosophy,  a  single  remarkable 
discovery,  extension,  retrogression,  or  error, — or,  in  short,  ^ 
to  fix  upon  a  single  great  name  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  ' 
which  does  not  belong  to  one  of  them.  The  great  and  dis- 
tinct differences  between  the  philosophy  of  one  of  these  na- 
tions and  that  of  another,  and  between  that  of  the  same  na- 
tion in  different  ages  of  its  history,  together  with  both  the 


OF  THE  POLISH  LANGUAGE.  233 

causes  and  the  effects  of  these  differences,  I  shall  endeavour 
to  lay  before  you  in  due  time. 

Among  the  Sclavonic  nations  Russia  possessed  very  early 
in  the  middle  age  a  national  historian  in  her  vernacular 
tongue ;   an  invaluable  advantage  and  a  sure  token  of  the 
commencement  of  national  cultivation.     That  this  cultiva- 
tion had  been  more  universal  and  extensive  in  Russia  pre- 
vious to  the  time  of  the  Mogul  devastations,  is  sufficiently 
proved  by  her  flourishing  commerce,  her  close  connection 
with    Constantinople,  and  many  other   historical   circum- 
stances.    But  to  say  nothing  of  other  causes,  her  subjection 
to  the  Greek  church  was  alone  sufficient  during  the  middle 
age,  and  is  in  some  measure  sufficient  even  in  our  own  time^ 
to  keep  Russia  politically  and  intellectually  at  a  distance 
from  the  rest  of  the  western  world.     Of  those  Sclavonic  na- 
tions which  belonged  altogether  to  this  part  of  Europe,  the 
Bohemians  already  possessed  under  their  Charles  IV.  a  fuli 
and  rich  literature,  a  more  near  acquaintance  with  which, 
above  all  for  historical  purposes,  might  be  very  desirable. 
From  all  that  we  know  of  it,  this  literature  appears  to  have 
followed  the  paths  of  history  and  science  much  more  thaa 
that  of  poetry.     That  the  Polish  language,  whose  fitness  for 
the  purposes  of  poetry  has  been  much  celebrated  of  late 
years,  did,  even  in  the  early  part  of  the  middle  age,  possess 
a  treasure  of  national  poems,  is  hinted  by  several  writers^ 
and  is  extremely  probable  from  the  character  of  the  nation.. 
But  I  myself  am  not  in  possession  of  the  means  either  to= 
verify  or  to  disprove  it.     Should  it,  however,  turn  out  that 
such  is  not  the  fact,  and  that  the  Sclavonic  languages  and  na- 
tions of  the  middle  age  were  entirely  destitute  of  any  such 
rich  and  peculiar  poetry  as  that  with  which  the  nations  mak- 
ing use  of  Germanic  and  Romanic  dialects  were  endowed, — 
even  if  this  should  be  so,  it  may  perhaps  be  no  difficult  mat- 
ter to  give  a  very  rational  account  of  the  phenomenon.     The 
Sclavonics,  in  the  first  place,  took  either  no  part  at  all,  or  at 
least  a  very  slight  part  indeed,  in  the  adventures  of  the  Cru- 
sades.    Secondly^  The  spirit  of  chivalry,  although  not  per- 
haps originally  foreign  and  unknown,  attained  at  no  period 
the  same  penetrating  and  commanding  power  over  them  as 
over  the  other  nations  of  Europe.     And  lastly^  It  may  be 
that  the  peculiar  theology  possessed  by  the  Sclavonics  before 

20* 


234  HUNGARIAN  POETS. 

the  adoption  of  Christianity,  was  less  rich  and  picturesque 
than  the  old  Gothic  system  of  superstitions,  or  at  least  that 
their  heathenish  ideas  were  more  speedily  and  entirely  eradi- 
cated by  the  prevalence  of  the  true  faith. 

There  is  no  douht  that  the  Hungarians  possessed,  even  in 
times  of  very  remote  antiquity,  a  peculiar  heroic  poetry  in 
their  national  language.  One  great  and  favourite  subject  of 
this  poetry  was  the  migration  and  the  conquest  of  the  country 
under  The  Seven  Leaders.  It  is  evident  from  many  passa- 
ges in  the  Hungarian  chronicles  that  even  after  the  intro- 
duction of  Christianity  these  legends  of  the  heathenish  time 
were  not  entirely  forgotten.  There  is  at  least  every  reason 
to  think  that  those  writers  have  actually  copied  from  ancient 
poems  of  that  sort.  One  such  poem,  indeed,  a  Hungarian 
scholar,  by  name  Revaj,  has  rescued  from  oblivion  ;  its  sub- 
ject is  the  arrival  of  the  Madyari  in  Hungary.  But  the  ex- 
istence of  many  such  poems  might  easily  be  gathered  from 
the  perusal  of  the  chronicle  of  the  Royal  Secretary,  as  he  is 
called,  Bela — the  same  person  who  fills  so  considerable  a 
place  both  in  the  history  and  jurisprudence  of  his  country. 
The  materials  upon  which  this  chronicler  wrought  were,  I 
have  no  doubt,  historical  heroic  ballads,  which  he  has  trans- 
lated very  diligently  into  prose,  and  interspersed  with  abun- 
dance of  opinions,  and  would-be  explanations  from  the  cooler 
coinage  of  his  own  brain.  But  I  am  far  from  approving  of 
the  severity  with  which  critics  in  history  are  accustomed  to 
treat  the  good  secretary.  We  should  value  the  book  for  the 
relics  which  it  embodies,  sorely  mutilated  as  these  no  doubt 
are,  of  the  heroic  legends  and  poetry  of  the  Madyari ;  and 
not  look  in  it  for  what  it  would  be  absurd  enough  to  expect 
we  should  find  in  any  such  place,  philosophical  inquiries 
into  political  afl^airs,  or  skilful  elucidations  of  historical  difli- 
culties.  Another  theme  of  the  Hungarian  poets  was  Attila, 
whom  they  uniformly  represented  as  a  king  and  hero  of  their 
own  nation.  In  these  chronicles  we  find  abundant  proof  that 
Attila  and  the  Gothic  heroes  associated  with  his  name  in  the 
Niebelungen-lied  and  the  Helden-buch,  were  equally  cele- 
brated in  the  language  of  Hungary,  and  that  poems  upon 
these  subjects  were  in  existence  down  to  a  period  compara- 
tively near  ourselves.  It  is  probable  that  the  destruction  of 
the  whole  of  this  ancient  poetry  may  be  referred  to  the  pe- 


HUNGARIAN  LEGENDS.  235 

riod  of  Mathias  Corvin,  who  attempted  at  once  to  change  his 
Hungarians  into  Latins  and  Italians,  the  natural  conse- 
quence of  which  was  to  bring  into  comparative  neglect  the 
old  legends  and  poems  of  the  country.  The  fate  which  be- 
fell Hungary  in  the  fifteenth  century  would  have  befallen 
Germany  in  the  eighteenth,  had  a  certain  illustrious  monarch 
of  that  period,  who,  like  Mathias,  thought  foreign  literature 
alone  worthy  of  his  attention,  been  possessed  of  an  influence 
as  great  and  undisputed  over  Germany,  as  Corvin  had  over 
Hungary.  Whatever  of  the  old  legends  of  Hungary  and  of 
the  monuments  of  its  language  and  poetry  escaped  the  bar- 
barism of  this  foreign  refinement,  felt  entirely  to  the  ground 
during  the  time  of  the  Turkish  invasions.  The  Hungarians 
have  retained  nothing  but  their  predilection  for  historical 
heroic  poetry.  Several  great  masters  of  that  art  have  ap- 
peared among  them  during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cen- 
turies ;  and  now  in  our  own  time,  there  has  arisen  one  more 
illustrious  than  any  of  these,  Kisfalud ;  who  has  devoted 
himself  in  his  mature  age  to  the  national  legends  of  his 
country  with  the  same  ardour  and  feeling  which  distin- 
guished the  amatory  poems  of  his  youth. 

I  close  these  sketches,  these  remarks  upon  the  literature 
and  language,  more  or  less  known  and  understood,  of  the 
diflferent  European  peoples,  with  one  general  reflection 
which  I  have  already  thrown  out  upon  a  previous  occasion. 
Every  independent  and  distinct  nation  has,  as  I  believe,  the 
right  to  possess  a  peculiar  literature ;  that  is,  to  possess  an 
improved  and  cultivated  national  language,  for,  without  that, 
no  degree  of  inteilectual  refinement  can  become  truly  na- 
tional and  effectual,  nay,  the  greatest,  being  embodied  in  a 
foreign  vehicle,  cannot  fail  to  be  tinged  with  a  certain  stain 
of  barbarism.  It  is  indeed  a  very  absurd  way  of  shewing 
our  partiality  for  our  own  language,  to  desist  from  learn- 
ing any  other,  or  even  to  deny  the  advantages  which  some 
foreign  languages  may  possess  over  our  own.  Besides  the 
ancient  languages,  there  are  several  of  the  modern  dialects 
so  useful  in  regard  to  general  cultivation,  that  whatever  de- 
partment a  man  chooses  for  himself,  he  cannot  feil  to  find 
one  or  other  of  them  absolutely  necessary  for  his  purposes. 
The  external  relations  of  life  have  besides  rendered  the  ac- 
quisition of  some  of  them  indispensable.    The  use  of  a  foreign 


236  OF  NATIONAL  LANGUAGE. 

dialect  in  legislation  and  in  courts  of  law  is  at  all  times  dis- 
tressing, and  I  might  even  say  unjust ;  the  use  of  a  foreign 
dialect  in  diplomacy,  and  in  the  social  intercourse  of  polished 
life,  can  never  fail  to  produce  injurious  effects  upon  the  ver- 
nacular language.  But  when  the  custom  of  so  using  a 
foreign  dialect  has  once  been  fairly  introduced,  the  evil  is,  at 
least  for  individuals,  an  irremediable  one.  It  then  becomes 
the  duty  of  the  whole  cultivated  and  higher  order  of  society 
to  come  forward  together,  to  point  out  by  their  influence  the 
proper  route  between  two  extremes  of  entirely  neglecting  and 
exclusively  studying  foreign  languages ;  to  give  to  necessity 
that  which  she  requires,  but  never  to  forget  what  is  due  to 
our  country.  The  care  of  the  national  language  I  consider 
as  at  all  times  a  sacred  trust  and  a  most  important  privilege 
of  the  higher  orders  of  society.  Every  man  of  education 
should  make  it  the  object  of  his  unceasing  concern,  to  pre- 
serve his  language  pure  and  entire,  to  speak  it,  so  far  as  is 
in  his  power,  in  all  its  beauty  and  perfection.  He  should 
be  acquainted  generally,  not  superficially,  not  only  with  the 
political  history,  but  with  the  language  and  literature  of  his 
country,  and  so  far  is  the  study  of  foreign  languages  from 
being  hostile  to  all  this,  that  without  such  study  I  believe  no 
man  can  acquire  the  degree  of  perspicacity,  or  the  facility  of 
expression  necessary  for  the  purposes  to  which  I  have  allu- 
ded. But  the  use  of  a  foreign  dialect  in  society  shauld  cer- 
tainly be  limited  to  the  strictest  bound  of  necessity.  The 
obligation  to  watch  over  the  language  should  be  most  sacred 
in  the  eyes  of  those  who  stand  highest  in  the  society ;  for 
the  more  rank,  and  wealth,  and  consequence  any  individual 
possesses,  the  more  has  the  nation  a  right  to  expect  from  this 
individual  that  he  shall  contribute  to  the  utmost  of  his  power 
to  the  preservation  and  cultivation  of  that  which  is  hers.  A 
nation  whose  language  becomes  rude  and  barbarous,  must 
be  on  the  brink  of  barbarism  in  regard  to  every  thing  else. 
A  nation  which  allows  her  language  to  go  to  ruin,  is  part- 
ing with  the  last  half  of  her  intellectual  independence,  and 
testifies  her  willingness  to  cease  to  exist.  The  danger  is  no 
doubt  great  when  a  national  language  is  assailed  on  the  one 
hand  by  a  systematic  plan  for  its  corruption,  and  on  the  other 
by  a  foolish  and  affected  fashion  which  encourages,  from 
mere  silliness,  the  use  of  a  foreign  dialect.     But  in  such  mat- 


EUROPE  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.  237 

ters  as  these,  the  danger  ceases  to  be,  the  moment  we  are 
sensible  of  its  existence.  In  every  thing  which  depends  not 
upon  the  spirit  of  a  moment,  but  the  perseverance  of  an  age, 
the  victory  is  always  sure  to  be  obtained  by  the  universal 
and  calmly  progressive  resistance  of  men  of  sense. 

From  this  general  survey  of  the  different  nations  of  Eu- 
rope, I  return  to  the  thread  of  my  history.  The  great  im- 
provements and  discoveries  which  have  given  to  the  science 
and  literature  of  modern  Europe  a  new  form  and  direction, 
belong,  properly  speaking,  to  the  eighteenth  century.  But 
that  intellectual  cultivation  which  attained  its  mighty  devel- 
opment in  the  eighteenth,  received  its  shape  and  form  in  the 
sixteenth  century  through  the  Reformation.  It  was  the 
moving  spirit  of  that  event  which,  both  in  the  one  of  these 
periods  and  in  the  other,  determined  the  way  in  which  the 
intellectuar  cultivation  should  run,  the  end  it  should  strive  to 
reach,  and  the  limits  within  which  it  should  be  confined. 
In  both  periods  the  apparent  subjects  of  dispute  and  tumult 
were  matters  at  first  sight  little  connected  either  with  refine- 
ment or  with  literature ;  for  these  were  either  politics,  and 
the  ecclesiastical  constitution,  the  being,  the  limits,  and  the 
exertions  of  spiritual  powers,  or  those  mysteries  of  religion 
which  lie  too  deep  even  for  the  investigation  of  philosophers 
themselves.  The  Reformation,  nevertheless,  although  these 
were  apparently  its  objects,  had  the  effect  of  shaking  and 
altering  the  whole  of  Europe,  and  thus  came  to  exert  a  very 
great  and  multifarious,  although  cenainly  an  indirect,  influ- 
ence over  literature  and  over  all  the  exertions  of  intellect  in 
whatever  way  applied.  This  influence  was  in  part  salutary, 
in  part  hurtful.  To  the  first  I  refer  the  universal  extension 
of  the  study  of  Greek,  and  the  other  ancient  languages, 
which  now  came  to  be  considered  as  indispensable  in  a  re- 
ligious point  of  view,  and  which  began  therefore  to  be  cul- 
tivated, if  not  more  zealously,  at  least  far  more  universally, 
in  all  the  Protestant  countries, — in  Holland,  in  England, 
and  in  the  north  of  Germany.  The  love  for  the  ancient 
languages  had  in  Germany,  and  above  all  in  Italy,  been 
such,  even  before  the  Reformation,  that  so  ikr  as  these  coun- 
tries are  concerned,  its  influence  was  merely  an  additional 
circumstance  in  their  favour.  The  contests  and  rivalries  of 
the  contending  parties  were  perhaps  productive  of  little  effect 


238  PAINTERS  OF  GERMANY. 

in  relation  to  the  true  objects  of  their  researches;  for  religion 
is  a  matter  of  faith  and  feeling  rather  than  of  disputation  and 
dialectic  combating.  In  a  political  point  of  view  the  effect 
of  the  great  ferment  has  been  far  more  happy ;  but  perhaps 
even  here  the  effect  has  been  an  indirect  rather  than  an  im- 
mediate advantage,  and  that  too  discovered,  like  most  other 
advantageous  consequences  afthe  Reformation,  not  instantly, 
(as  its  evil  effects  were,)  but  long  after,  when  the  agitated 
elements  had  had  leisure  to  subside  into  a  calm.  The  effects 
upon  the  imitative  arts  were  pernicious.  I  do  not  allude  to 
those  operations  of  active  destruction  which  took  place  here 
and  there,  but  rather  to  that  more  general  evil  which  result- 
ed from  the  arts  being  compelled  to  depart  from  their  natural 
and  original  destination.  The  civil  disturbances  and  wars 
which  ensued,  were,  in  like  manner,  as  usually  happens, 
more  destructive  to  the  arts  than  to  literature.  It  was  prob- 
ably in  consequence  of  these  events,  that  the  national  paint- 
ing of  Germany,  which  had  begun  to  flourish  with  so  much 
success  in  the  hands  of  Albert  Durer,  Lucas  Cranach,  and 
Holbien,  stopped  before  it  had  time  to  reach  the  eminence 
it  was  fitted  to  attain.  These  great  men  were  themselves 
contemporaries  of  the  Reformation,  but  they  had  been  edu- 
cated in  the  time  before  it  took  place,  and  in  their  art  they 
found  no  followers.  In  the  Protestant  Netherlands,  paint- 
ing became  devoted  to  subjects  of  lesser  importance  ;  and  so 
employed,  in  spite  of  the  utmost  perfection  in  execution,  it 
could  never  approach  the  superior  power  and  effect  of  the 
old  painting  which  had  been  devoted  to  religion.  In  general 
there  ^vas  produced  a  most  unfortunate  rupture  between  men 
and  their  ancestors;  and  these,  not  contented  with  laying 
aside  the  contested  points  of  faith  or  ecclesiastical  govern- 
ment, thought  it  necessary  to  forget  the  whole  middle  age, 
and  to  despise  the  history,  the  art,  and  the  poetry,  with  which 
its  recollections  were  so  intimately  blended  and  united. 
The  loss  to  Germany  was  peculiarly  unfortunate.  Such  a 
break  and  throwing  aside  of  the  intellectual  inheritance  of 
our  forefathers  could  scarcely  indeed  fail  to  be  produced  by 
a  revolution  so  sudden  and  so  entire.  But  now  that  all  the 
causes  of  the  bigotry  have  ceased  to  operate  with  any  vio- 
lence, it  is  time  surely  that  we  lay  it  aside,  that  we  begin  to 
think  liberally,  and  no  longer  to  indulge  in  any  contempt 


EFFECTS  OF  THE  REFORMATION.  239 

either  of  the  art  or  the  refinement  of  the  middle  ages. 
The  principle,  that  the  Reformation  was  productive  of  liber- 
ty of  thought,  is  one  that  can  scarcely  be  defended  now. 
The  universal  freedom,  the  full  emancipation  of  intellect,  at 
the  end  of  the  seventeenth  and  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  does  not  at  least  belong  to  the  immediate  conse- 
quences of  the  Reformation ;  it  was  produced  by  a  great 
mixture  of  causes  over  and  above  the  Reformation,  and  after 
all  there  is  not  a  little  reason  to  doubt  whether  the  unfettered 
licence  it  has  introduced  has  been  so  salutary  and  praise- 
worthy as  we  have  sometimes  heard.  The  near  and  imme- 
diate effect  of  the  Reformation  upon  philosophy  and  freedom 
of  thinking,  was  one  of  constraint.  The  idea  of  such  liber- 
ality as  that  which  prevailed  in  Italy  and  Germany  under 
the  Medici,  Leo  X.,  and  Maximilian,  was  a  thing  entirely 
unknown  among  the  zealous  Protestants  of  the  sixteenth  and 
of  the  first  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  establish- 
ment of  such  tyranny,  political  and  intellectual,  as  that  of  a 
Henry  VIII.,  of  a  Philip  IL,  or  of  a  Cromwell,  was  only 
rendered  possible  by  means  of  the  Reformation.  He  who 
is  placed  at  the  head  of  a  new  party,  and  a  great  revolution, 
at  once  religious  and  political,  possesses  a  power  so  unlimit- 
ed over  thought  and  intellect,  that  it  is  at  least  entirely  the 
effect  of  his  own  choice  if  he  does  not  abuse  it.  To  the  de- 
fenders of  the  old  faith,  on  the  contrary,  under  a  Philip  II., 
and  under  several  of  the  French  kings,  every  mean  appeared 
allowable  which  could  contribute  to  check  the  farther  diffu- 
sion of  the  new  opinions.  Should  any  one  attempt  to  prove 
the  beneficial  tendency  of  the  Reformation  by  quoting  in- 
stances of  persecution  from  the  times  preceding  it — such  as 
the  burning  of  John  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague — my  an- 
swer is,  that  these  cruel  enormities  were  in  part  at  least  the 
effects  of  political  animosity,  or  if  that  be  not  sufficient,  that 
abundance  of  similar  horrors  may  be  found  after  the  Refor- 
mation in  the  history  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centu- 
ries, and  that  too  on  both  sides.  The  first  great  self-reflect- 
ing mind,  the  first  writer  of  great  and  active  power,  whom 
the  Protestants  possessed  after  the  period  of  the  first  ferment 
— Hugo  Grotius  himself,  living  in  the  freest  country  then 
existing,  could  not  escape  imprisonment  and  persecution. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  dangerous  abuses  which  some  had 


240  ITALY  IN  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY. 

made  of  liberty,  led  to  narrow-mindedness  and  oppression  on 
the  part  of  rulers  otherwise  well  disposed  to  be  liberal.  In 
Italy,  in  particular,  a  speedy  termination  was  put  to  the  then 
rapidly  increasing  progress  of  philosophy ;  insomuch  that  a 
fact  soon  became  to  be  doubted,  which  seems  to  me  abun- 
dantly clear  and  evident, — I  mean  the  natural  capacity  of 
that  ingenious  nation  for  the  higher  exertions  of  intellectual 
inquiry.  The  most  distinguished  philosophical  talents  pos- 
sessed by  Italy  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
took  a  turn  so  unfortunate  that  they  have  been  almost  en- 
tirely lost  to  their  country,  their  doctrines  having  become 
adverse  not  only  to  the  spirit  of  the  Christian  church,  but  to 
all  those  principles  of  moral  belief  without  which  there  is 
no  safety  in  the  social  intercourse  of  men.  In  the  world  of 
intellect,  as  well  as  in  that  of  politics,  the  sure  consequence 
of  anarchy  is  despotism,  and  oppression  is  again  invariably 
the  harbinger  of  lawlessness.  So  that  there  is  a  perpetual 
flux  and  reflux  from  the  one  of  these  extremes  to  the  other, 
both  alike  dangerous,  unless  some  third  and  higher  influence 
intervenes,  or  the  whole  bond  of  constitution  is  renewed. 

When  certain  panegyrists  of  the  Reformation  represent 
this  as  having  been  in  itself  alone  a  step  forward  of  the  human 
mind,  and  of  philosophy — a  deliverance  from  erroi  and  pre- 
judice— they  are  just  taking  for  granted  the  very  fact  upon 
which  we  are  at  issue.  One  should  think,  also,  that  men 
might  be  rendered  more  cautious  in  the  use  of  such  expres- 
sions, when  they  reflect,  that  by  the  example  of  many  great 
nations — of  Spain,  of  Italy,  of  Catholic  France  during  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  of  Southern  Germany  even  in  these 
latest  times — it  can  be  proved,  with  little  hazard  of  contra- 
diction, that  a  very  high,  nay,  that  the  very  highest  degree 
of  intellectual  cultivation  is  perfectly  compatible  with  the 
belief  of  those  doctrines  which  the  friends  of  Protestantism 
decry  as  antiquated  prejudices.  The  admirers  of  the  Refor- 
mation should  lay  less  stress  upon  its  consequences ;  for  of 
these  some  were,  as  themselves  admit,  altogether  unhappy, 
many  remote,  and  assisted  by  the  co-operation  of  other 
causes.  Besides,  the  effects  are  perhaps  in  no  case  perfectly 
decisive  as  to  the  nature  of  the  thing  itself  The  bigoted 
Catholics,  on  the  other  hand,  who  despise  the  Reformation, 
and  abhor  it  as  altogether  irreconcileable  with  their  own 


PROGRESS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.  241 

religious  opinions,  should  at  least  recollect  that  the  later,  if 
not  the  more  immediate,  effects  of  that  mighty  convulsion, 
have  been  beneficial  and  salutary.  If  we  survey  the  history 
of  the  v^^orld  with  the  feeling  of  belief,  if  we  are  willing  to 
recognize  in  the  fortunes  and  fates  of  mankind  the  interpos- 
ing hand  of  Providence,  we  shall  perceive  the  same  specta- 
cle in  every  direction.  Every  where  we  shall  see  men  pre- 
sented with  the  happiest  opportunities,  entreated,  as  it  were, 
to  do  good,  to  know  the  truth,  and  to  reach  the  eminence  of 
true  greatness  and  true  excellence ;  entreated,  however,  not 
compelled ;  for  their  own  co-operation  is  necessary  if  they 
would  be  what  fits  the  destiny  of  their  nature.  Rarely,  very 
rarely,  do  men  make  the  proper  use  of  the  means  they  are 
intrusted  to  employ ;  often  do  they  pervert  them  to  the  most 
dangerous  abuses,  and  sink  even  deeper  into  their  ancient  er- 
rors. Providence  is,  if  we  may  so  speak,  ever  struggling 
with  the  carelessness  and  the  perversity  of  man ;  scarcely  by 
our  own  guilt  and  blindness  have  we  been  plunged  into 
some  great  and  fearful  evil,  ere  the  Benefactor  of  our  nature 
causes  unexpected  blessings  to  spring  out  of  the  bosom  of 
our  merited  misfortune — warnings  and  lessons,  expressed  in 
deeds  and  events,  furnishing  us  with  ever  returning  admoni- 
tions to  bethink  ourselves  in  earnest,  and  depart  no  more 
from  the  path  of  truth. 

With  the  art  of  poetry  Protestantism  disclaimed  at  first 
any  connection ;  its  effects  upon  both  were  injurious  and  de- 
pressing ;  history  and  grammar  were,  in  consequence  of  the 
Reformation,  both  studied  more  accurately,  and  diffused 
more  extensively ;  but  with  philosophy  the  change  of  reli- 
gion stood  in  the  most  intimate  connection.  But  perhaps 
this  may  be  no  improper  place  for  giving  a  short  sketch  of 
the  history  of  philosophy,  both  before  the  Reformation,  and 
in  the  first  century  after  it — I  mean,  of  course,  only  in  so 
far  as  philosophy  exerted  a  real  influence  upon  the  universal 
intellect  of  the  time. 

I  have  already  called  your  attention  to  the  most  remark- 
able of  those  philosophical  geniuses  produced  by  England, 
Italy,  and  France,  in  the  earlier  period  previous  to  the 
twelfth  century.  Germany  too  was  fruitful  in  such  produc- 
tions, and  may  boast  of  an  almost  uninterrupted  series  of 
them  from  the  reign  of  Charlemagne  down  to  the  Reforma- 

21 


242  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ARISTOTLE. 

tion,  and  even  after  that  eve«t.  Upon  the  whole,  barren- 
ness is  of  all  reproaches  the  one  least  deserved  by  the  mo- 
dern Europeans,  even  by  those  of  the  middle  age.  If  we 
must  blame  them,  it  should  rather  be  for  the  mixture  of  use  • 
less  and  unprofitable  weeds  which  they  have  allowed  tc 
spring  up  along  with  their  good  grain,  more  particularlj 
when  any  new  field  has  been  added  to  the  territories  of  sei 
once.  It  was  thus  that  along  with  the  mathematical,  chem- 
ical, and  medical  learning  which  they  borrowed  from  the 
Arabians,  they  admitted  from  the  same  quarter  the  trash  of 
astrology  and  alchemy ;  and  it  was  thus  that  with  the  know- 
ledge of  Aristotle,  whom  they  considered  as  the  perfection  of 
all  merely  human  wisdom,  there  grew  up  a  whole  wilderness 
of  dialectical  hair-splittings  and  sophistical  artifices,  of  pretty 
nearly  the  same  nature  with  those  which  had  formerly  in- 
fested the  Greeks.  The  best  thing  in  the  philosophy  of 
Aristotle  is  the  spirit  of  criticism.  But  to  perceive  or  com- 
prehend this,  required  an  enlarged  and  complete  knowledge 
of  antiquity,  such  as  was  in  those  days  quite  impossible,  and 
as  is,  even  in  our  own  time,  extremely  rare.  The  critical 
spirit  of  Aristotle  deserted  him  in  the  region  of  metaphysics 
alone,  because  there  the  only  two  guides  which  he  followed, 
reason  and  experience,  were  incapable  of  leading  him  aright. 
From  an  absurd  reliance  on  those  metaphysics,  which  even 
in  the  works  of  the  great  master  himself  are  unintelligible, 
arose  that  system  of  philosophy  which  has  received  the 
name  of  the  Scholastic.  The  evil  occasioned  by  this  was, 
however,  abundantly  atoned  for  by  the  good  effects  of  the 
study  of  the  practical  physics  of  Aristotle,  particularly  after 
the  time  of  Albertus  Magnus.  That  the  morals  of  Aristotle 
were  an  important  acquisition  to  the  middle  ages  I  can  by 
no  means  allow;  the  value  of  that  system  to  us  consists 
chiefly  in  the  illustration  it  affords  of  the  manners,  the  do- 
mestic life,  and  the  political  institutions  of  the  Greeks.  Long 
before  the  works  of  Aristotle  began  to  be  studied,  our  ances- 
tors possessed  a  system  of  ethics  incomparably  purer  and 
better  than  his  in  the  Bible ;  and  their  acquaintance  with 
him  only  tempted  them  to  deform  that  superior  system  by 
ingrafting  upon  it  a  great  variety  of  superfluous  niceties  and 
classifications.  Of  the  very  pernicious  effects  which  the 
Aristotelic  system  is  capable  of  producing^  even  upon  a  very 


EVILS  OF  THE  SYSTEM.  243 

refined  and  learned  age,  Spain  can  supply  us  with  one  very- 
striking  example.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  great 
question  of  the  treatment  of  the  Americans  was  agitated,  the 
minds  of  many  of  her  best  reasoners,  and  among  others  of 
one  who,  in  every  other  respect,  was  a  very  excellent  man, 
Sapolveda,  were  so  infected  with  those  notions  of  slavery  so 
prevalent  among  the  Greek  authors,  that,  principally  by 
their  means,  measures  were  adopted  by  the  national  coun- 
cils equally  repugnant  to  the  principles  of  natural  justice, 
and  to  the  express  precepts  of  Christianity. 

We  are  not,  however,  to  suppose  that  all  the  evils  of  the 
scholastic  system  w^fere  occasioned  entirely  by  the  study  of 
Aristotle.  At  first  the  opposition  of  the  church  to  his  doc- 
trines was  greatly  enhanced  on  account  of  a  crowd  of  most 
dangerous  doctrines  and  opinions  which  began  to  come  into 
fashion  about  the  same  time  with  those  properly  belonging 
to  his  philosophy.  This  much,  nevertheless,  must  be  ad- 
mitted, that  from  the  history  of  the  Arabs,  no  less  than  from 
that  of  the  middle  ages  in  Europe  and  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, there  is  reason  to  believe,  that  the  two  notions  of  con- 
ceiving the  Deity  to  be  a  mere  animating  principle  of  the 
universe,  and  of  denying  the  personal  immortality  of  the 
soul,  appear  to  be,  if  not  necessarily,  at  least  were  generally 
connected  with  a  zealous  adoption  of  Aristotelianism.  How- 
ever this  might  have  been,  the  impulse  of  the  age  became  in 
a  short  time  irresistible,  and  the  dominion  of  Aristotle  could 
no  longer  be  avoided.  Christian  philosophers,  alike  desirous 
of  supporting  the  cause  of  truth,  and  of  extending  the  limits 
of  knowledge,  then  applied  themselves  to  the  study  of  Aris- 
totle, in  the  hope  of  at  least  turning  aside  the  stream  which 
they  found  it  was  now  impossible  to  turn  back.  It  is  no 
easy  matter  to  form  a  proper  general  judgment  concerning 
these  men  who,  at  least  in  so  far  as  talents  were  concerned, 
deserved  the  very  highest  estimation.  The  false  and  scholas- 
tic turn  of  their  philosophy  was  the  natural  consequence  of 
the  ancient  sophistry,  (bequeathed  as  that  was,  and  too  in- 
considerately accepted,)  of  the  original  defectiveness  of  the 
Aristotlelic  metaphysics,  and  the  Arabian  commentaries, — 
above  all,  of  that  spirit  of  sect  which  was  the  animating  prin- 
ciple of  the  age,  and  from  which  (so  enticing  were  its  allurC' 
ments)  even  they  who  were  mo$t  aware  of  its  existence  could 


244  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

seldom  keep  themselves  entirely  free.  This  spirit  of  sect 
and  division  was  nourished  and  inflamed  very  powerfully 
by  the  universities,  wherein  many  thousands  of  striplings 
were  yearly  educated  in  the  very  atmosphere  of  contention, 
and  taught  to  consider  the  violence  of  disputation  as  the 
highest  eminence  of  human  merit.  For  the  best  things 
which  the  philosophers  of  the  middle  ages  possessed,  they 
were  indebted  either  to  Christianity,  which  at  all  times  se- 
cured them  from  falling  into  the  most  dangerous  species  of 
errors,  and  to  the  greatness  of  their  own  genius  and  under- 
standing. But  after  all,  there  can  be  no  greater  mistake 
than  to  suppose  that  what  we  commonly  understand  by  the 
name  of  scholastic,  that  is,  the  unprofitable  waste  of  intellect 
in  empty  ideas,  and  unintelligible  formulas,  was  an  error 
peculiar  to  the  middle  ages.  The  evil  had  already  displayed 
itself  to  excess  in  the  philosophy  of  the  Greeks,  and  that  too 
in  the  most  flourishing  age  of  its  cultivation.  The  same 
thing  may  be  said  of  modern  times ;  for  not  from  Germany 
alone,  but  from  France  and  England  also,  there  could  be  no 
difficulty  in  producing  abundance  of  examples,  very  often  in 
the  persons  of  those  very  men  who  have  declaimed  the  most 
loudly  against  the  scholastic  philosophy  and  against  the 
Stagyrite.  It  is  only  requisite  that  we  look  to  the  essence 
of  the  evil,  and  that  we  do  not  allow  ourselves  to  hold  sophis- 
try to  be  less  dangerous,  merely  because  it  presents  itself  in 
a  form  of  greater  skill  and  elegance. 

The  prevalence  of  empty  ideas  and  meaningless  words  is 
a  malady  incident  to  human  reason,  which  never  fails  to  make 
its  appearance  the  moment  we  desert  the  path  of  truth ;  in 
my  opinion,  its  most  pernicious  influences  are  exerted  in  ac- 
tive life  by  means  of  the  distorted  artifices  of  eloquence,  and  not 
in  the  retired  and  formal  exercises  of  the  schools.  In  every 
case,  however,  the  spirit  of  sect  is  its  inevitable  consequence. 

The  philosophy  of  the  middle  age  may  be  said  to  have 
been  defective,  chiefly  because  it  was  not  thoroughly  Chris- 
tian ;  because  the  intellect,  knowledge,  and  ideas  of  mankind, 
were  not  sufficiently  penetrated  with  the  spirit  of  our  reli- 
gion. In  the  philosophy  of  the  modern  Europeans,  which 
these  inherited  as  a  legacy  from  the  ancients,  there  are  two 
great  masters  to  be  followed,  and  each  is  calculated  to  lead 
those  that  put  confidence  in  his  direction  into  a  particular 


STUDY  OF  MAGIC.  245 

train  of  errors.  On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  defect  to  which 
I  have  already  alluded,  that  over-rationalism  to  which  men 
are  led  by  Aristotle  and  the  ancient  dialectics :  the  other  is 
the  Platonic  and  visionary  system  of  error  into  which  men 
are  very  apt  to  fall,  whenever  thought  and  faith  overshoot 
those  limits  which  are  necessary  to  the  right  exertion  of 
every  human  faculty.  From  this  proceeded  the  second 
species  of  philosophy  common  in  the  middle  age,  the  mystic. 
So  long  as  men  confined  themselves  to  the  subjects  of  reli- 
gious feeling  and  conscience,  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  phi- 
losophy was  not  merely  an  excusable  but  a  very  excellent 
guide.  But  its  defectiveness  was  very  apparent  when  they 
attempted  to  apply  it  to  matters  of  science.  Platonism,  con- 
nected as  it  was  with  a  host  of  oriental  mysteries,  public  and 
concealed,  gave  the  fancy  too  much  room  for  play,  and  in 
natural  science  in  particular,  the  adoption  of  its  tenets  was 
almost  always  coupled  with  a  belief  in  astrology,  and  a  lean- 
ing to  the  study  of  magic.  This  was  above  all  common  in 
Germany.  I  may  be  the  more  easily  excused  for  saying  so, 
since,  in  our  own  days,  there  have  occurred  many  symptoms 
of  a  tendency  to  recur  to  these  errors.  As  in  former  times, 
pious  men  began  the  histories  of  their  lives  with  a  prayer  to 
God,  or  a  religious  sentiment  or  aspiration,  so  it  has  once 
more  come  in  fashion  to  commence  memoirs  with  a  scheme 
of  nativity,  or  some  astrological  conjecture.*  The  specula- 
tions of  natural  philosophers  may  certainly  select,  without 
offence,  any  subjects  which  promise  either  knowledge  or 
amusement  to  those  that  pursue  them.  I  am  not  disposed  ta 
throw  entire  ridicule  even  upon  the  study  of  secret  influences, 
when  it  is  kept  in  its  proper  place.  But  the  application  of 
such  pursuits  to  the  business  of  active  hfe,  and  the  belief  that 
human  destinies  can  in  any  degree  be  regulated  by  the  posi- 
tion of  the  stars,  are  absurdities  which  deserve  to  be  treated 
with  something  more  severe  than  ridicule  itself  The  per- 
nicious effect  of  a  firm  belief  in  the  potency  of  these  mysteri- 
ous influences,  the  total  ruin  of  all  moral  and  religious  prin- 
ciple which  such  a  belief  brings  along  with  it,  has  already 
been  depicted  with  terrible  vigour  by  the  tragic  pencil  of 
Schiller  in  his  Wallenstein.     Easy  as  is  the  abuse,  and  dan- 

*  Schlegel  alludes  to  the  first  paragraph  of  Goethe's  Life. 

21* 


246  THE  OCCULT  SCIENCES. 

g-erous  the  partaking  of  such  things,  they  have  been  dealt 
in  by  neither  few  nor  inconsiderable  persons.  An  Albertus 
Magnus,  a  mathematician  of  the  fifteenth  century,  such  as 
Nicolas  of  Cusa,  a  pious  bishop,  such  as  Trithemius,  the 
first  of  all  orientalists,  Reuchlin  himself,  confessed,  without 
scruple,  their  hankering  after  the  possession  of  secrets  which 
can  never  be  revealed  to  man.  It  would  be  as  unjust  as  fool- 
ish to  deny  the  merits  of  these  great  men,  to  call  in  question 
their  genius,  their  knowledge,  or  their  piety,  on  account  of 
their  addiction  to  follies  which,  in  our  own  day,  w^e  have 
seen  so  nearly  revived.  But  all  the  dabblers  in  the  occult 
sciences  were  not  men  of  this  kind ;  the  facility  with  which 
such  pursuits  could  be  associated  with  the  most  profligate 
schemes  of  quackery  and  charlatanery  is  too  apparent  in  the 
history  of  the  times.  It  may  be  sufficient  for  my  purpose  to 
mention  the  name  of  Agrippa.  Even  Paracelsus  himself 
was  not  free  from  some  such  errors.  But  Germany  pos- 
sessed, in  these  early  days,  many  mystic  philosophers,  who 
devoted  themselves  entirely  to  the  feelings  of  religion.  No 
modern  language  was  so  soon  applied  to  the  purposes  of  the 
higher  philosophy  and  to  spiritual  subjects  as  ours. 

There  were,  from  the  thirteenth  century,  down  to  the  time 
of  the  Reformation,  very  many  writers  of  this  kind  both  in 
High  and  Lower  Dutch.  They  were  connected  with  each 
other,  and  formed  a  sort  of  school,  and  called  themselves  the 
servants  of  wisdom,  or  the  heavenly  Sophia,  understanding 
by  this  name  that  divine  and  sublime  truth  which  was  the 
object  of  their  ambition,  and  to  their  love  of  which  they  wil- 
lingly sacrificed  their  lives.  I  shall,  out  of  a  great  number, 
mention  only  one  whose  works  were  of  great  importance  in 
the  formation  of  our  language.  This  is  the  preacher,  or  the 
philosopher,  Tauler,  who  received,  long  after  the  Reforma- 
tion, the  emulous  praises  both  of  Catholics  and  Protestants, 
but  who  has  at  last  yielded  to  the  common  destiny  of  ob- 
livion. The  scholars  of  Alsace,  who,  although  their  coun- 
try has  long  been  politically  annexed  to  France,  still  shew, 
by  the  diligence  and  depth  of  their  inquiries  into  our  history 
and  our  language,  that  they  are  determined  by  no  means  to 
part  with  their  character  of  Germans,  have  had  the  merit,  in 
our  own  time,  of  recalling  the  public  attention  to  this  forgot- 
ten sage,  and  the  very  high  importance  of  his  works,  at  least 


MODERN  GERMAN  PHILOSOPHY.  247 

SO  far  as  language  is  concerned.  If  we  compare  his  writings 
with  those  upon  similar  subjects,  composed  in  Luther's  time, 
or  even  a  century  later,  we  shall  find  their  superiority  as 
manifest  as  is  that  of  the  harmonious  love-poems  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  and  the  Niebelungen-lied  over  the  rude  verses 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  this  respect  also  the  elder  time 
was  by  no  means  the  more  rude,  but  as  its  spirit  was  better, 
so  its  language  also  was  purer  than  that  of  the  age  which 
came  after. 

When  critics  reproach  our  nation  with  a  tendency  to  mys- 
ticism, they  are  probably  not  aware  how  old  the  failing  is. 
It  would  be  easy  to  shew  that  we  have  been  equally  guilty 
of  it  ever  since  the  time  of  Charlemagne.  But  whether  the 
reproach  be  really  well  founded,  or  whether  that  which  is 
the  suiject  of  it  be  not  rather  deserving  of  praise  than  of 
blame,  I  shall  not  take  upon  me  at  the  present  time  to  de- 
cide. 

In  the  philosophy  of  the  middle  age,  as  in  that  of  the  more 
modem  times,  the  strong  and  distinct  influence  of  national 
character  is  abundantly  visible.  In  the  older,  exactly  as  in 
the  later  times,  France  and  England  were  distinguished  for 
the  production  of  great  thinkers,  great  doubters,  and  great 
sophists.  The  Italians  were  chiefly  remarkable  for  their 
strict  adherence  to  the  truths  of  our  religion ;  but  they  also, 
like  the  Germans,  had  a  propensity  to  the  higher,  the  more 
spiritual,  and  the  more  mystical  kind  of  philosophy.  The 
leaning  to  Platonism  may  be  traced  even  in  their  poets.  In 
one  word,  that  philosophy  of  experience  and  reason,  whose 
greatest  master  among  the  ancients  was  Aristotle,  had  the 
greatest  number  of  followers  during  the  middle  ages,  as  well 
as  more  lately,  in  France  and  England.  In  this  respect 
these  two  nations,  in  spite  of  their  political  rivalry,  coincide 
at  bottom  in  their  views  and  opinions,  much  more  closely 
than  at  first  sight  might  be  imagined.  A  propensity  to  the 
other  and  more  Platonic  species  of  philosophy  has,  on  the 
other  hand,  distinguished  both  the  Italians  and  the  Germans, 
the  one  the  most  remarkable  nation  for  love  of  art,  and  the 
other  for  depth  of  feeling ;  insomuch,  that  widely  different 
as  they  are  in  origin,  language,  and  manners,  they  have  at 
all  times  been  connected  together  by  a  certain  sympathy  and 
community  of  attachments. 


LECTURE  XL 


GENERAL  REMARKS  ON  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  TIMES  IMMEDIATELY  PRE- 
CEDING  AND  FOLLOWING  THE  REFORMATION POETRY  OF  THE  CATHO- 
LIC NATIONS,  THE  SPANIARDS,  THE    PORTUGUESE,  AND  THE    ITALIANS 

GARCILASO,  ERCILLA,    CAMOENS,    TASSO,    GUARINI,     MARINO,    AND    CER- 
VANTES. 


The  state  of  universal  thought,  and  the  progress  if  phi- 
losophy, immediately  before  the  Reformation,  and  in  the  first 
century  after  it,  formed  the  last  subjects  of  our  attention.  The 
real  result  of  our  inquiries  may  be  comprised  in  the  follow- 
ing general  remarks : — 

Throughout  the  whole  of  Europe,  before  the  restoration 
of  ancient  learning  and  the  reformation  in  religion,  that  empty 
logical  system  of  words,  which  went  by  the  name  of  Aris- 
totle, was  adopted  almost  universally  by  the  learned ;  and, 
without  any  exception  whatever,  by  all  the  public  semina- 
ries of  instruction.  In  Germany,  however,  and  afterwards 
in  Italy,  there  sprung  up,  during  the  fifteenth  century,  by 
the  side  of  this  dead  philosophy  of  words,  another  and  a 
higher  species  of  philosophy,  which  coincided  in  part  with 
the  system  of  Plato,  and  in  part  with  that  of  the  Orientals. 
In  particular  things  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  new  system 
led  the  way  to  error  ;  but  upon  the  whole,  at  least  its  prin- 
ciples were  just,  and,  at  all  events,  it  was  both  richer  in  im- 
port and  more  profound  in  its  views  than  the  other.  We 
may  see  the  proof  of  its  superiority  even  in  the  manner 
wherein  it  was  studied,  and  in  the  persons  of  those  by  whom 
it  was  adopted.  The  seat  of  its  sway  was  not  in  the  uni- 
versities and  in  the  schools — its  adherents  formed,  properly 
speaking,  no  sect ;  it  deserved,  in  fact,  the  name  of  philoso- 
phy, according  to  the  oldest  signification  of  the  word — a  love 
of  wisdom,  sought  and  difliised  for  its  own  sake  alone,  by 
men  who  felt  within  them  the  irresistible  vocation  to  the  pur- 


THE  ARISTOTELIC  PHILOSOPHY.  249 

suit  of  truth.  The  greatest  naturalists  and  mathematicians, 
the  most  profound  masters  of  Greek  learning,  and  the  best 
Orientalists  of  the  fifteenth  century,  both  in  Germany  and 
Italy,  belonged  to  the  followers  of  this  new  system.  The 
renewed  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  Greece  had,  on 
the  whole,  no  other  effect  upon  this  mystical  and  more  Pla- 
tonic mode  of  philosophizing,  but  that  of  affording  to  it  new 
materials  and  new  nourishment  out  of  the  innumerable  trea- 
sures and  monuments  of  ancient  wisdom ;  new  means  of  en- 
richment, and  new  instruments  of  bolder  development.  These 
advantages  were,  in  some  measure,  counterbalanced  by  the 
simultaneous  introduction  of  many  new  errors,  or  rather  the 
revival  of  the  forgotten  dreams  of  New  Platonism  and  the 
Orientals.  By  the  restoration  of  ancient  literature,  the  then 
prevalent  species  of  philosophy  gained  additional  extent  of 
knowledge,  but  an  influx  of  visionary  opinions  accompanied 
the  change,  and,  upon  the  whole,  the  power  which  was  re- 
ceived was  capable  of  being  turned  to  evil  as  well  as  to 
good. 

On  the  other  species  of  philosophy,  the  Aristotelic,  the 
effect  was  still  greater.  As  yet  this  system  had  never  been 
studied  or  comprehended  in  its  purity,  but  always  mingled 
with  a  variety  of  Platonic  notions,  and  in  some  measure  re- 
duced to  a  sort  of  subjection  to  the  doctrines  of  Christianit3^ 
But  now  the  opinions  of  Aristotle  began  to  be  sought  for  in 
the  original  language,  and  to  be  viewed  in  connection  with 
the  whole  system  of  Grecian  cultivation ;  and  the  change 
could  not  fail  to  be  extremely  favourable,  at  least  in  regard 
to  form.  The  external  part  of  the  scholastic  philosophy  was 
at  all  events  removed,  and  that  which  remained  learned  to 
clothe  itself  in  a  form  not  so  entirely  unworthy  of  the  clas- 
sical elegance  of  antiquity  and  the  critical  acuteness  of  the 
Stagyrite.  But  the  better  and  the  deeper  that  the  spirit  of 
the  ancient  philosophy  was  comprehended,  the  more  fre- 
quently did  it  happen  that  individual  students  were  betrayed 
into  the  adoption  of  such  consequences  of  their  system  as  are 
irreconcileable  with  religion  and  morality  ;  as,  for  example, 
the  dogma  of  establishing  as  first  cause,  in  the  room  of  God, 
a  mere  principle  of  universal  existence,  and  the  other  equally 
dangerous  one,  of  denying  the  personal  immortality  of  the 
soul.     These  errors  were  abundantly  common  among  the 


250  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 

followers  of  Aristotle,  particularly  in  Italy,  during  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  The  attempts  to  renew 
some  of  the  other  systems  of  ancient  philosophy,  such  as  the 
Stoic,  which  were  made  about  the  same  time,  were  produc- 
tive of  much  less  effect  upon  the  general  progress  of  philo- 
sophy. Plato  and  Aristotle  have  so  distinctly  marked  out 
the  two  great  paths  of  human  thought  and  science,  that  they 
have  remained,  and  always  must  remain,  the  master-guides 
of  all  succeeding  generations.  The  other  systems  of  anti- 
quity are  valuable,  for  the  most  part,  only  because  they  re- 
semble one  or  other  of  these ;  they  are  slight  deviations  and 
by-paths,  which  soon  return  again  into  the  main  roads.  It 
was  for  this  reason  that  the  plans  for  renewing  Stoicism,  or 
any  other  of  the  lesser  systems,  had  very  inconsiderable  suc- 
cess, and  produced  indeed  very  little  effect  of  any  kind,  ex- 
cept that  they  could  not  fail  to  stimulate  thought,  and  in- 
crease yet  more  the  general  ferment  of  opinions.  Of  all 
these  systems,  the  worst  alone,  that  of  Epicurus  and  of  pure 
materialism,  which  traces  the  origin  of  every  thing  to  the 
collision  of  corporeal  atoms,  began  to  meet  with  some  suc- 
cess in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  in  the  eighteenth  made 
such  progress  as  might  entitle  its  adherents  to  say  that  they 
belonged  to  a  sect. 

In  common  language  we  often  hear  the  epoch  of  the  fif- 
teenth and  sixteenth  centuries  called  a  restoration  or  a  second 
birth  of  the  sciences.  A  restoration  it  undoubtedly  was,  at 
least  in  respect  of  that  renewed  acquaintance  with  Greek 
literature  and  antiquity,  by  means  of  which,  if  the  historical 
knowledge  of  these  matters  was  not  indeed  rendered  perfect, 
it  received  at  least  incalculable  improvement.  But  I  can  by 
no  means  approve  of  calling  it  a  second  birth  of  the  human 
intellect  and  of  the  sciences,  for  I  should  consider  that  name 
as  due,  not  to  such  a  change  as  amounts  only  to  an  increase 
of  w^ealth,  and  is  produced  by  any  external  circumstances, 
but  to  one  which  consists  of  an  awakening  out  of  previous 
death,  and  breaks  out  from  the  roused  energies  of  internal 
life.  Such  an  inward,  a  living,  and  a  total  change  upon 
philosophy  as  this ;  was  not  even  produced  by  the  Reforma- 
tion ;  for  after  it,  as  before,  the  Aristotelic  and  Platonic  sys- 
tems still  continued  to  be  the  two  main  divisions  of  all  sci- 
ence. Yet  the  Reformation  exerted  a  mighty  influence  upon 


LUTHER  AND  MELANCTHON.  251 

the  future  progress,  the  development,  and  the  extension  of 
both  systems.  With  those  Platonic-Oriental  doctrines  which 
were  before  him,  and  during  his  lifetime,  so  prevalent  in 
Germany,  the  acquaintance  of  Luther  himself  seems  to  have 
been  extremely  slight ;  such  as  it  was,  it  helped  him  to  a 
more  cordial  hatred  of  the  scholastic  system  and  of  Aris- 
totle, of  whom  he  used  to  speak  with  great  contempt  as  "  a 
dead  heathen."  Nevertheless,  the  best  friend  and  follower 
of  Luther,  Melancthon,  was  of  a  very  different  way  of  think- 
ing ;  it  was  indeed  chiefly  by  his  means  that  the  authority 
of  the  improved  scholastic  system,  and  of  Aristotle,  was  re- 
established in  its  supremacy.  The  cause  of  this  was  as 
follows :  —  That  higher  and  more  spiritual  philosophy, 
which,  wherever  it  loses  sight  of  truth,  is  the  most  effectual 
means  of  introducing  all  sorts  of  visionary  error,  had  this 
effect  to  a  very  remarkable  extent  in  Germany  during  the 
anarchical  times  of  the  Reformation.  An  universal  mistrust 
of  it  was  the  consequence.  The  Aristotelic  philosophy  re- 
gained its  predominant  influence  over  both  parties,  in  Spain 
as  well  as  in  Germany,  for  this  ancient  system  of  forms, 
the  less  spirit  it  had,  the  more  easily  was  it  bent  and  accom- 
modated to  the  purposes  of  either  sect,  and  the  dogmas  of 
either  creed.  Although,  however,  this  system  was  now 
united  with  a  somewhat  superior  knowledge  of  nature,  and 
with  better  skill  in  language  and  antiquity,  the  evils  of 
which  it  had  formerly  been  productive  still  adhered  to  it ; 
it  continued  to  be,  after  all,  a  logical  word-system,  and  near 
at  hand  as  its  extinction  appeared  to  be  even  during  the  fif- 
teenth century,  the  effects  of  this  favourable  moment  were 
now  sufficient  to  secure  the  protraction  of  its  existence  in 
every  cultivated  country  of  Europe  down  to  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  In  Italy  the  bolder  species  of  philoso- 
phy, which  there  assumed,  it  must  be  allowed,  the  appear- 
ance of  the  most  dangerous  and  violent  opposition,  was  now 
oppressed,  and  many  most  distinguished  talents  fell  a  sacri- 
fice to  the  struggle  which  ensued.  In  Germany  and  Eng- 
land the  higher  philosophy  was  not,  it  is  true,  altogether 
oppressed,  but  it  certainly  was  discouraged,  and  even  perse- 
cuted, and  became,  at  all  events,  entirely  excluded  from  the 
sphere  of  the  learned.  With  so  much  the  greater  zeal  was 
it  cultivated  by  individuals  of  the  lower  orders  of  societ}^, 


252  PHILOSOPHERS  UNLEARNED. 

and  extended  in  other  quarters  by  the  ministration  of  secret 
associations.  In  either  of  these  ways  it  could  not  fail  to  be 
corrupted,  and  degraded,  and  kept  back  from  that  universal 
development,  and  effectual  influence  to  which  it  might  other- 
wise have  attained.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  gifts  of  na- 
ture and  God  are  open  to  all ;  the  spirit  of  deep  reflection, 
and  of  the  highest  science,  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the 
polished  classes  of  society,  and  is  a  thing  entirely  uncon- 
nected with  what  is  called  erudition.  Many  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  the  Greek  philosophers  were  men  of  little  eru- 
dition, and  destitute  of  any  advantage  over  other  men  than 
what  they  gained  by  their  power  of  thought ;  the  wisest  of 
them  all,  Socrates,  was  no  scholar,  and  never  wished  to  be- 
come one.  The  first  preachers  of  Christianity  were  men 
taken  from  the  vulgar  of  the  people,  and  yet  we  see  that 
they  have  no  fear  to  treat  subjects  of  the  most  mysterious 
depth  in  a  manner  the  most  easy  and  natural.  Of  such 
men  there  has  been,  through  all  ages,  a  successive  series. 
There  often  lies,  in  the  strong  and  undissipated  spirit  of  the 
people,  an  astonishing  energy  both  of  moral  and  of  intellec- 
tual strength.  The  founders  of  sects  and  of  states,  the  aven- 
gers of  their  country,  and  the  revivers  of  religion,  have  often 
been  men  of  the  vulgar,  called  and  animated  to  their  great 
works  by  the  voice  of  internal  inspiration.  The  greatest 
benefits  have  been  conferred  upon  mankind  not  by  writings 
but  by  active  deeds.  If  we  look  to  the  spirit  of  invention 
and  the  gift  of  language,  and  compare  philosophy  with  poe- 
try, we  shall  find  that  even  in  these  respects  genius  is  by  no 
means  the  privileged  possession  of  the  learned.  We  know 
that  it  has  been  possible  for  a  Shakespeare,  a  man  whose 
learning  seems  to  have  been  chiefly  confined  to  popular 
poetry,  to  reach  a  height  and  depth  of  representation  which 
the  most  skilful  and  erudite  poets  have  in  vain  endeavoured 
to  attain ;  I  see  no  reason  why  it  should  appear  to  us  a  thing 
more  marvellous  that  a  man  of  the  people  in  Germany 
should  have  penetrated  into  those  depths  of  metaphysical  in- 
quiry, ard  excited  an  inventive  genius  on  those  secret  depart- 
ments of  pMlosophy,  which  were  entirely  out  of  the  reach 
of  the  erudite  doctors  of  the  time ;  need  I  add  the  name  of 
Jacob  Böhme,  the  Teutonic  philosopher,  as  he  has  been 
calledj  a  name  which  is  to  the  enlightened  a  stumbling-block, 


THE  TEUTONIC  PHILOSOPHY.  253 

and  to  the  learned  foolishness ;  a  man  who,  in  spite  of  all 
his  disadvantages,  had  many  followers,  not  in  Germany- 
alone,  but  even  in  other  countries,  also  in  Holland  and  Eng- 
land— among  others  in  this  last  country,  the  too  celebrated  and 
unfortunate  King  Charles.  I  have  already  more  than  once 
expressed  my  conviction  that  the  very  existence  of  a  poetry 
of  the  vulgar  is  in  itself  a  sufficient  evidence  of  the  decline 
and  corruption  of  true  poetry;  for  that  is  a  possession  which 
should  not  belong  peculiarly  either  to  the  common  people 
or  to  the  learned,  but  equally  to  all  the  members  of  which 
the  national  body  is  composed.  If  a  popular  poetry  cannot 
escape  betraying  some  symptoms  of  this  unnatural  state, . 
some  traces  of  the  corruption  and  barbarism  which  are  in- 
separable from  this  unfortunate  separation ;  how  much  more 
must  all  this  be  the  case  with  a  popular  philosophy — a  term 
which  seems  to  involve  in  it  the  very  necessity  of  a  contra- 
diction ?  However  much  the  genius  of  individuals  may  tri- 
umph over  the  circumstances  of  their  situation,  it  is  impos- 
sible that  philosophy  can  ever  acquire,  in  their  hands,  the 
place  which  is  due  to  her.  This  is  not  the  time  to  depict 
and  explain  more  fully  the  very  remarkable  system  of  this 
Teutonic  philosophy.  This  much,  however,  I  may  remark, 
that  although  it  bears  very  distinctly  the  traces  of  having 
been  the  creation  of  one  inventive  spirit,  it  is  by  no  means 
destitute  of  points  of  coincidence  with  those  other  forms  of 
secret  philosophy,  the  influence  of  which  was  at  that  time 
ever  on  the  increase.  Nor  is  it  at  all  astonishing  that  this 
should  have  been  so,  for  at  that  period  the  unconquerable 
thirst  after  truth  was  every  where  seeking  for  itself  new  and 
more  mysterious  paths,  and  removed  as  far  as  possible  from 
the  old  tracts  of  verbal  science  and  erudition ;  paths  which 
led  to  fountains  of  sublime  discovery,  of  lofty  conception, 
but,  we  must  also  admit,  not  unfrequently,  of  wild  dreams 
and  unprofitable  error.  After  the  at  once  visible  and  invisi- 
ble bond  of  the  church  were  dissolved  in  certain  countries 
of  Europe,  another  altogether  invisible  system  of  connection 
began  to  occupy  its  place.  There  are  degrees  in  the  know- 
ledge of  truth,  there  are  higher  and  lower  steps ;  the  higher 
are  scarcely  ever  attainable  to  the  yet  struggling  nature  of 
man.  I  will  confess  that,  according  to  the  opinion  of  Les- 
sing,  there  are,  among  the  component  parts  of  human  know- 

22 


254  THE  PLATONIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

ledge,  some  which  are  in  their  very  nature  secret ;  that  is, 
which  are  of  such  a  sort  that  even  such  as  have  them  in 
their  possession  can  never  find  resolution  to  reveal  them. 
The  publication  appears  always  ill-timed ;  and,  moreover, 
the  means  of  publication  are  almost  perpetually  a  wanting. 
The  existence  of  such  difficulties  as  these  is  proved  by  his- 
tory to  have  been  common  to  every  age  of  the  world  ;  it  is 
as  impossible  to  prevent  such  species  of  knowledge  as  those 
of  which  I  speak  from  being  propagated  in  secret,  as  it  is  to 
render  them  common  to  all  the  world.  However  much  of 
truth  the  secret  system  may  contain,  the  opposition  between 
^it,  and  the  open  structure  of  truth,  is  at  all  times  unfortunate. 
'Even  the  separation  in  the  visible  church  at  the  era  of  the 
Reformation,  cannot  fail  to  be  considered,  by  all  good  men, 
as  a  great  misfortune,  for  it  was  a  rupture  in  the  family  of 
the  Christian  people,  and,  as  it  were,  a  tearing  asunder  of 
the  great  body  of  our  species.  The  existence  of  an  invisible 
church,  in  opposition  to  the  visible,  must  have  at  that  time 
appeared  a  yet  more  alarming  occurrence;  it  must  have 
been  viewed  as  a  sort  of  separation  between  soul  and  body, 
a  sure  mark  of  dissolution.  But  the  evil  effects  which  might 
have  been  expected  have  not  been  realized,  the  soul  and 
body  of  mankind  are  not  yet  separated,  and  the  unity  of 
truth  still  remains.  He  who  despises  the  rock  upon  which 
truth  stands,  will  never  be  able  to  reach  the  place  of  her 
temple. 

That  -spiritual,  Platonic,  and  oriental  mode  of  philoso- 
phizing which  had  been  openly  adopted  by  the  great  men 
of  Italy  and  Germany  in  the  fifteenth  century,  was,  after 
the  Reformation,  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
either  altogether  suppressed,  or  left  to  the  vulgar  and  to  in- 
dividual visionaries,  or  propagated  in  secret,  and  with  great 
alterations  and  corruptions.  Among  the  learned  men,  the 
old  logical  word  system,  which  went  so  absurdly  by  the 
name  of  Aristotle,  retained  its  undisputed  sway,  till  almost 
two  hundred  years  later ;  towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  it  began  to  be  pressed  out  of  view  by  new  sects  and 
systems,  the  consideration  of  whose  merits  must  belong  to  an 
after  period ;  for  their  operation  has  continued  down  to  our 
own  day,  and  their  full  development  was  the  work  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 


THE  POETRY  OF  CATHOLIC  COUNTRIES.  255 

As  the  diJfTerent  nations  of  Europe  became  now  again 
more  separated  from  each  other,  a  corresponding  and  equally 
unfortunate  division  took  place  among  the  different  sciences 
and  studies.  The  events  of  the  period  were  hurtful,  above 
all,  to  the  study  of  antiquity,  and  prevented  it  from  bearing 
any  right  fruit,  or  having  any  active  influence  upon  life. 
The  first  great  restorers  of  erudition  were  philosophers,  men 
whose  knowledge  of  the  middle  ages,  and  of  their  own  time, 
was  equal  to  their  knowledge  of  antiquity,  who  united  orien- 
tal learning  with  that  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans.  They 
viewed  every  thing  in  its  proper  place ;  they  took  a  compre- 
hensive survey  of  things,  and  judged  of  them  by  their  rela- 
tion to  the  history  of  the  world,  and  by  the  real  powers  which 
they  possessed.  But  after  the  miserable  period  of  separation, 
when  philosophy  was  persecuted,  suppressed,  or  corrupted, 
and  the  middle  age  forgotten,  the  attention  of  the  learned, 
who  had  no  longer  almost  any  connection  with  their  own 
world  or  nation,  was  entirely  restricted  to  the  antiquity  of 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  which  they  admired  without  hav- 
ing any  proper  feeling  for  the  true  beauties  of  its  productions. 
Among  poets  and  artists  alone  did  any  lively  perception  of 
this  exist ;  the  learned,  who  scarcely  ever  united  any  philoso- 
phy with  their  classical  erudition,  were  satisfied  with  a  mere 
superstitious  w^orship  of  the  languages.  The  true  and  en- 
lightened knowledge  of  the  spirit  of  antiquity  did  not  appear 
till  the  eighteenth  century. 

Even  in  regard  to  art  and  poetry,  we  must  always  regard 
it  as  unlucky  that  they  should  spring  up  without  any  con- 
nection with  philosophy,  that  the  cultivation  of  the  imagina- 
tion should  be  separated  from  that  of  the  understanding,  and 
that  the  former  of  these  should  not  unfrequently  be  placed  in 
exact  opposition  to  the  latter.  In  these  stormy  days,  how- 
ever, in  the  ferment  and  revolutions  of  which  philosophy  and 
history  were  so  much  involved,  art  and  poetry,  it  must  be 
allowed,  formed  almost  the  sole  asylum  wherein  feeling  and 
intellect  had  leisure  to  unfold  themselves  in  the  natural  calm- 
ness of  their  beauty. 

The  poetry  of  the  Catholic  countries,  the  Spanish,  the 
Italian,  and  the  Portuguese,  were  in  that  age  so  much  parts 
of  one  whole,  that  I  think  they  should  all  be  considered  to- 
gether.    The  Spaniards,  as  we  have  already  seen,  possessed 


256  POETRY  AND  ROMANCES  OF  SPAIN. 

very  early  their  national  poem  of  the  Cid :  their  love  poetry 
continued  to  flourish  in  the  fifteenth  century,  later  than  that 
of  any  other  nation.     The  general  spirit  of  chivalry,  and  of 
the  poetry  connected  with  it,  was  preserved  here  much  longer 
than  in  any  other  country  of  Europe.     Their  Chivalric  Ro- 
mances have  a  tone  of  feeling  almost  peculiar  to  themselves, 
and  are  distinguished  (above  all,  the  oldest  and  best  of  them, 
the  Amadis)  by  a  more  polished  and  beautiful  mode  of  writ- 
ing than  is  elsewhere  to  be  found,  and  by  a  prevailing  fond- 
ness for  tender  and  idyllic  representations.     Here  too,  then, 
in  the  poetry  of  chivalry,  and  particularly  in  that  of  the 
Spaniards  and  the  Germans,  we  find  new  confirmation  of 
what  I  noticed  in  an  early  part  of  these  lectures — the  par- 
tiality of  all  heroic  nations  and  warlike  peoples  to  that 
which  is  soft  and  tender  in  poetical  composition.     Along 
with  the  Chivalric  Romances  there  grew  up  among  the 
Spaniards  and  Portuguese  the  kindred  species  of  the  Pas- 
toral Romance.     The  poetry  of  Spain,  particularly  her  love 
poetry,  was  cultivated  with  great  success  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, by  two  men  whose  birth,  rank,  and  influence,  were  of 
the  first  order, — Villena  and  Santillana.     In  general,  ever 
since  its  first  commencement,  the  poetry  of  Spain  has  always 
been  more  cultivated  by  nobles  and  knights  than  by  mere  lite- 
rati and  authors.    I  know  of  no  nation  which  numbers  among 
its  poets  so  many  that  have  borne  arms  in  the  cause  of  their 
country.     That  poetry  which  we  call  Spanish,  should  rather, 
m  its  oldest  period,  be  denominated  Castilian ;  for  at  first  it 
was  peculiar  to  that  province  alone ;  and  many  other  coun- 
tries of  the  Spanish  peninsula  cultivated  poetry  in  a  manner 
of  their  own  quite  different  from  that  of  the  Castilians.     In 
Catalonia  there  flourished  a  species  of  poetry,  which,  in  re- 
spect to  language,  bore  the  greatest  resemblance  to  the  Pro- 
vencial.     The  last  and  most  celebrated  of  its  productions  was 
consecrated  to  the  melancholy  fate  of  Charles  of  Viane,  the 
last  of  the  royal  family,  Avho  seems  to  have  been  beloved  by 
the  Catalonians  as  their  native  Prince,  and  the  elder  brother, 
by  the  first  marriage,  of  that  Ferdinand  who  afterwards 
ruled  over  Castile  also  under  the  name  of  The  Catholic,  and 
came  on  this  account  to  be  regarded  somewhat  as  a  stranger 
by  the  inhabitants  of  Arragon.     That  province  was  from 
this  time  more  and  more  subjected  and  despised ;  and  the 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  SPANISH  POETRY.  257 

peculiar  poetry  shared  the  fate  of  the  independence  of  the 
country  where  it  had  flourished ;  by  degrees,  as  the  whole 
political  importance  came  to  centre  in  Castile,  so  also  were 
all  those  ornaments  of  poetry  swallowed  up  in  the  Castilian 
poetry,  which  had  before  been  scattered  throughout  the  dif- 
ferent provinces  of  that  poetical  land.  Of  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  beautiful  peninsula,  the  Portuguese  alone,  as  they  con- 
tinued to  be  a  peculiar  nation,  preserved  a  peculiar  language 
and  poetry  of  their  own ;  yet  their  old  strictness  of  connec- 
tion with  Castile  was  still  preserved :  many  Portuguese  com- 
posed in  the  Castilian  dialect,  and  much  of  what  commonly 
passes  for  Castilian  is,  in  reality,  by  origin  Portuguese.  The 
poetry  of  the  two  nations  is  indeed  so  intimately  connected, 
that  it  is  far  from  easy  to  adjust  their  respective  claims  to  the 
merit  of  invention.  The  Arabs  contributed  much  to  enrich 
and  adorn  the  poetry  of  the  country  which  they  invaded.  It 
is  true,  the  old  Castilian  poems  are  quite  free  from  any  such 
Arabian  influence  or  oriental  tone ;  they  are,  on  the  con- 
trary, distinguished  by  a  strength  and  simplicity  both  of  lan- 
guage and  of  feeling,  which  bear  the  sure  marks  of  a  very 
different  origin.  The  more  distinct  is  the  absence  of  all 
Arabic  ornament  in  the  old  Castilian  poetry,  the  more  clearly 
do  we  perceive  its  presence  in  the  new.  The  separation  oc- 
casioned by  differences  of  religion  and  perpetual  hostilities, 
may  sufficiently  account  for  the  want  of  Arabian  ornaments 
in  the  poetry  of  the  remoter  period.  But  when  Isabella  and 
Ferdinand  the  Catholic,  (I  name  Isabella  first  because  the 
generous  principle  was  peculiarly  hers.)  when  they  with 
their  knights  conquered  Granada,  and  after  seven  long  cen- 
turies rendered  Spain  once  more  entirely  free  from  the  foreign 
yoke ;  during  that  last  war  between  Moors  and  Spaniards, 
the  fall  of  the  Arabic  kingdom  of  Granada  was  hastened  by 
internal  dissentions  and  the  discord  of  its  nobles.  At  the 
head  of  two  contending  parties  were  placed  the  two  great 
families  of  the  Bencerrajas  and  the  Zegris.  The  first  em- 
braced Christianity,  and  became  Spaniards ;  the  second  re- 
treated, after  the  final  conquest  of  the  capital,  to  Africa. 
There  yet  exist  many  romances  which  celebrated  the  fame 
and  achievements  of  the  Bencerrajas,  their  bloody  feuds  with 
the  Zegris,  and  the  last  struggles  of  the  Granadian  Arabs. 
Proud  songs  of  the  most  glowing  love,  and  the  wildest 

22* 


258  SPANISH  NATIONAL  LITERATURE. 

passion  for  glory ;  mutilated  heroic  fragments  of  the  most 
tender  feeling;  simple  in  their  language,  but  yet  by  no 
means  devoid  of  the  eastern  fire ;  these  Granadian  produc- 
tions, consecrated  to  the  glory  of  particular  families  and 
tribes,  are  in  their  tone  and  import  entirely  Saracen,  and  re- 
semble in  most  things,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  the  original 
poetry  of  the  Arabian  people.  Here,  in  these  romances,  the 
most  beautiful,  according  to  my  judgment,  possessed  either 
by  the  Spanish,  or  by  any  other  modern  people,  the  Arabian 
spirit  and  oriental  colouring  can  no  longer  be  mistaken; 
they  have  tinged  with  their  own  hue  the  whole  of  the  suc- 
ceeding poetry  of  Spain.  The  garden  of  Spanish  poetry,  its 
old  Castilian  soil  being  planted  with  the  flowers  of  Portu- 
guese invention  and  Provencial  elegance,  and  now  also 
cherished  by  the  bright  glow  of  Arabic  ardour,  became 
every  day  more  beautiful  and  rich.  Under  Charles  V.  who 
crowned  Ariosto  as  the  first  poet  of  Italy,  the  more  artificial 
poetry  of  the  Italians  was  introduced  into  Spain  by  Garcilaso 
and  Boscan,  who  retained,  however,  a  due  regard  for  the 
nature  of  the  old  language  and  poetry,  and  were  far  from 
wishing  to  sacrifice  these  to  their  admiration  for  their  foreign 
models.  To  these  the  whole  nation  was  so  much  attached, 
that  the  introduction  of  the  Italian  style  met  at  first  with 
great  opposition,  although  afterwards  it  came  to  produce 
very  favourable  effects.  No  other  poetry  is  composed  of  so 
many  different  elements  as  the  Spanish ;  but  these  elements 
were  neither  unlike  nor  irreconcileable ;  they  were  all  dif- 
ferent tones  of  fancy  and  feeling  whose  union  formed  the  per- 
fection of  harmony,  and  has  left  the  Spanish  poetry  the 
matchless  wonder  of  romantic  writing.  This  poetry  is  not 
only  rich ;  it  is  by  itself,  both  in  its  import  and  spirit,  and  in 
every  respect  is  in  perfect  unison  wdth  the  character  and  feel- 
ing of  the  nation. 

Ever  since  that  glorious  period  under  Ferdinand  the 
Catholic  and  Charles  V.  no  literature  has  preserved  a  char- 
acter of  such  pure  nationality  as  that  of  the  Spaniards.  If 
we  consider  the  works  of  literature  by  the  principles  of  any 
universal  theory  of  art,  there  is  no  end  to  the  controversy 
which  may  arise  with  regard  to  the  merits  and  defects,  either 
of  an  individual  book,  or  of  a  whole  body  of  literature ;  the 
great  danger  is,  that  we  may  perhaps,  in  the  course  of  our 


SUPERIORITY  OF  SPANISH  LITERATURE. 


controversies,  lose  sight  altogether  of  our  o^vn  feelings,  and 
forget  the  first  pare  impression  which  was  made  upon  us. 
But  there  is  another  point  from  which  literature  can  be 
much  more  easily  contemplated,  and  much  more  securely- 
judged  ;  I  mean  the  moral  point  of  view,  which  commands 
every  thing,  from  which  alone  we  can  discover  whether  a 
literature  be  throughout  national,  and  in  harmony  with  the 
national  weal  and  the  national  spirit.  If  we  adopt  this  mode 
of  deciding,  every  thing,  I  have  little  doubt,  will  be  found 
in  favour  of  the  Spaniards.  We  may  look  at  the  literature 
of  Italy ;  and,  so  far  as  form  and  style  are  concerned,  we 
may  have  no  difficulty  in  allowing  its  superiority  over  the 
Spanish ;  but  if  we  regard  national  spirit  and  influence,  how 
clear  and  decided  is  its  inferiority.  Some  of  the  first  Italian 
poets  seem  to  have  been  destitute  of  all  regard  for  their 
country,  devoid  of  the  least  spark  of  national  feeling, — such 
were  Boccaccio,  Ariosto,  Guarini.  In  others,  as,  for  in- 
stance, in  Petrarch,  we  can  perceive  indeed  some  faint  echo 
of  national  feeling,  but  this  almost  always  ill  directed  and 
absurd;  as  in  his  case,  the  admiration  of  Rienzi,  and  the 
plans  for  re-establishing  the  Roman  republic,  render  it  abun- 
dantly manifest.  The  two  most  national  of  the  great  Italian 
writers  are  Dante  and  Machiavelli ;  but  the  first  is  far  less 
a  patriot  than  a  Ghibelline,  and  the  second  has  spent  his 
whole  genius  in  defending  opinions  and  principles,  the  adop- 
tion of  which  strikes  at  the  root  of  every  thing  like  public 
virtue. 

In  this  point  of  view  the  literature  and  poetry  of  Spain 
are  most  admirable.  Every  part  of  them  is  penetrated  with 
the  noblest  natural  feeling ;  strong,  moral,  and  deeply  reli- 
gious, even  when  the  immediate  subject  of  writing  is  neither 
morality  nor  religion.  There  is  nothing  can  degraded 
thought,  corrupt  feeling,  or  estrange  virtue.  Every  where  \ 
there  breathes  the  same  spirit  of  honour,  principle,  and  faith. 
I  have  already  alluded  to  the  great  number  of  excellent  his- 
torical writers,  and  to  the  early  developed  and  long  pre- 
served manly  eloquence  of  Spain.  Their  poets  are,  in  like 
manner,  true  Spaniards.  We  may  almost  say  that  the  only 
differences  among  them  are  those  of  language  and  expres- 
sion ;  the  mode  of  thinking  which  prevails  among  all  these 
writers  is  one  and  the  same,  the  Spanish.     This  high  na- 


260  OF  GARCILASO,  AS  A  POET. 


tional  value  has  but  too  often  been  overlooked  by  critics ; 
the  works  of  the  Spaniards  have  been  absurdly  judged  by 
the  rules  of  the  ancients  or  of  the  Italians — or  what  is  still 
worse,  by  the  narrow  decisions  of  the  French  taste.  In 
regard  to  national  value,  of  all  modern  literatures,  the  first 
place  belongs  to  the  Spanish,  the  second  to  the  English.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  latter  of  these  is  inferior  in  any 
degree  to  the  former;  but  it  has  had  to  contend  with  a 
greater  variety  of  anti-national  elements,  and  it  has  gone 
through  a  greater  number  of  changes  and  temporary  declen- 
sions from  the  right  path.  The  national  unity  of  the  Eng- 
lish literature  has  been  preserved  in  spite  of  all  these  obsta- 
cles, but  rather  as  if  in  consequence  of  some  tacit  law,  than 
as  if  from  the  mere  feeling  and  tendency  of  its  character.  I 
am  far  from  asserting  that  this  is  the  only  point  of  vieAv  from 
which  literature  ought  to  be  surveyed.  I  shall  have  occa- 
sion in  the  sequel  to  show  that  many  literatures  derive  the 
greater  part  of  their  interest  from  elements  of  a  very  different 
description. 

Garcilaso,  and  some  other  poets  of  the  time  of  Charles 
V.  are  usually  held  up  by  the  Spanish  critics  as  models  of 
beautiful  language  and  perfect  taste.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  they  are  models  of  composition  worthy  of  great  atten- 
tion ;  above  all,  when  we  compare  them  with  the  artificial 
and  corrupted  style  of  the  poets  who  succeeded  them.  But 
I  can  never  believe  that  either  Garcilaso,  or  any  one  of  his 
contemporaries,  has  reached  the  same  point  of  perfection  in 
poetical  language  which  Virgil  did  among  the  Romans,  or 
Racine  among  the  French.  Their  poems  are  rather  happy 
effusions  of  the  feehng  of  love,  than  great  classical  works. 
A  lyrical  and  idyllic  poet  may  show  the  happy  condition  of 
language  and  poetry  in  his  country,  but  he  can  never  bring 
either  to  their  full  perfection ;  for  lyrical  poems  are  of  too 
narrow  limits  and  too  confined  import  for  this.  It  is  only 
an  epic  or  a  dramatic  poet  who  can  ever  become  an  univer- 
sal and  abiding  standard  for  the  art  and  language  of  his  na- 
tion. The  life  of  the  Spanish  people  was  then  so  chivalric 
and  rich,  their  wars  in  Europe  so  great  and  glorious,  and 
their  adventures  on  the  sea  and  in  the  new  world  so  wonder- 
ful and  so  gratifying  to  the  imagination,  that  the  invented 
marvellous  of  the  old  romances  appeared  dull  and  common- 


THE  CID,  ITS  CHARACTERISTICS.  261 

place  when  contrasted  with  these  realities.  About  this  time, 
in  other  countries,  the  fashion  commenced  of  turning  the 
subjects  of  the  old  chivalric  romances  into  epic  poems.  In 
Spain  things  took  a  different  turn,  and  poetry  became  daily- 
more  and  more  historical  in  its  themes.  Such  at  least  is  the 
case  with  the  most  celebrated  epic  of  the  Spaniards,  the 
Araucana  of  Ercilla,  wherein  the  wars  of  the  Spanish  ad- 
venturers with  a  free  and  brave  American  nation  are  cele- 
brated or  narrated.  The  appearance  of  the  foreign  country, 
and  its  savage  inhabitants,  wilderness,  and  natural  curiosi- 
ties, campaigns  and  combats,  are  all  depicted  with  such 
truth  and  vivacity,  that  we  are  kept  for  ever  in  mind  that  the 
poet  was  an  eye-witness  of  all  that  he  describes.  This  first 
of  Spanish  epics  abounds  in  individual  passages  of  great 
poetical  power  and  beauty;  but  as  a  whole,  it  is  certainly 
rather  a  versified  book  of  travels  and  history  of  war,  than 
a  poem.  The  heroic  poem  should  at  all  times  unite  histo- 
rical truth  and  dignity  with  the  free  play  of  fancy  in  the 
regions  of  the  marvellous;  it  matters  little  whether  the 
ground-work  be  historical  or  fictitious.  In  my  opinion  the 
first  of  all  the  national  heroic  poems  which  the  Spaniards 
possess  is  unquestionably  the  Cid.  The  Portuguese  poet 
Camoens  was  in  these  respects  far  more  fortunate  than  Er- 
cilla. As  the  wildernesses  of  America  then  belonged  to 
Spain,  so  the  riches  of  India  fell  to  the  share  of  this  nation ; 
a  circumstance  infinitely  more  happy  for  the  purposes  of  the 
poet.  In  him,  too,  we  feel  that  the  poet  was  also  a  warrior, 
a  mariner,  an  adventurer,  and  a  circumnavigator.  He  be- 
gins, indeed,  with  the  most  violent  praise  of  truth,  and  boasts 
that  he  intends  to  beat  Ariosto  by  means  of  real  incidents, 
far  surpassing  in  splendour  of  marvellousness  the  fictitious 
achievements  of  Orlando  and  Ruggiero.  At  its  commence- 
ment his  poem  is  written  in  strict  imitation  of  the  Virgilian 
model,  a  constant  adherence  to  which  was  indeed  the  chief 
fault  of  all  the  epic  poets  of  that  age.  But  Camoens,  like 
his  own  Gama,  soon  leaves  the  servile  coast-sailing  of  his 
predecessors,  ventures  into  the  wide  expanse  of  ocean,  and 
makes  his  triumphant  progress  through  rich  and  undis- 
covered lands.  As  the  mariner  in  the  midst  of  the  troubles 
and  tempests  of  the  sea,  perceives,  by  the  spicy  gales,  that 
he  is  approaching  to  his  Indian  haven,  so  over  the  later  can- 


262  THE  GENIUS  OF  TASSO. 

tos  of  the  Lusiad  there  is  diffused  the  rich  air  and  the  re- 
splendent sun  of  the  oriental  skies.    The  language  is  indeed 
simple  and  the  purpose  serious ;  nevertheless,  in  colouring 
and  fulness  of  fancy,  Camoens  here  surpasses  even  Ariosto, 
whose  garland  he  so  venturously  aspired  to  tear  away.    But 
Camoens  does  not  confine  himself  to   Gama  and  the  dis- 
covery of  India,  nor  even  to  the  sway  and  achievements  of 
the  Portuguese  of  his  day ;  whatever  of  chivalrous,  great, 
beautiful,  or  noble,  could  be  gathered  from  the  traditions  of 
his  country  has  been  inweaved  and  embodied  into  the  web 
of  his  poem.     It  embraces  the  whole  poetry  of  his  nation  ; 
among  all  the  heroic  poets  either  of  ancient  or  of  modern 
times  there  has  never,  since  Homer,  been  any  one  so  in- 
tensely national,  or  so  loved  and  honoured  by  his  country- 
men, as  Camoens.     It  seems  as  if  the  national  feelings  of 
the  Portuguese,  excluded  from  every  other  subject  of  medi- 
tation by  the  degraded  condition  of  their  empire,  had  centred 
and   reposed  themselves  in  the  person    of  this  poet,    con- 
sidered by  them,  and  worthy  of  being  considered  by  us,  as 
•worthy  of  supplying  the  place  of  a  whole  troop  of  poets,  and 
as  being  in  himself  a  complete  literature  to  his  country.   The 
most  interesting  parts  of  the  poem,  are  those  passages  at  the 
beginning  and  the  close,  wherein  Camoens  addresses  him- 
self to  the  young  monarch  Sebastian,  the  same  who  was 
destined  to  involve  in  the  miseries  of  his  destinies  the  whole 
fortunes  of  his  people,  with  love  and  animating  admiration, 
and  yet  with  some  portion  of  seriousness  and  warning  as  it 
might  be  the  privilege  of  a  grey-haired  veteran,  such  as  he 
was,  to  address  his  king. 

Somewhat  later  than  Camoens  appeared  Tasso,  a  poet 
nearer  to  ourselves  by  his  language,  and,  in  part  also,  by  his 
subject,  which,  by  the  way,  is  chosen  with  the  utmost  pos- 
sible felicity,  for  the  Crusades  unite,  in  a  manner  elsewhere 
unequalled,  the  whole  fulness  of  the  chivalrous  and  the  mar- 
vellous, with  the  seriousness  of  historical  truth.  His  sub- 
ject was  still  more  adapted  for  his  own  time  than  it  is  for 
ours ;  for  the  old  contest  between  Christendom  and  the  pow- 
ers of  Mahomet  had  not  yet  terminated.  Even  in  the  days 
of  Charles  V.  the  heroes  and  warriors  of  Spain  still  flat- 
tered themselves  with  the  hope  of  regaining  the  lost  con- 
quests of  Godfrey  in  the  Holy  Land ;  a  thing  which,  after 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  HIS  STYLE,  263 

all,  might  well  have  seemed  quite  possible,  after  the  naval 
power  of  Spain  had  acquired  the  undisputed  superiority  in 
the  Mediterranean,  and  particularly  after  limits  had  fairly 
been  set  to  the  tremendous  power  of  the  Turkish  Emperor 
by  land.  An  inspiration  not  only  poetical  but  patriotic  was 
derived  from  the  cause  of  Christendom  by  this  poet,  in  whom 
Jove  of  glory  and  piety  of  feeling  were  equally  predominant. 
But  he  has  by  no  means  equalled  the  greatness  of  his  sub- 
ject ;  on  the  contrary,  he  has  made  so  little  use  of  its  riches, 
that  he  may  be  said  to  have  spent  only  the  superfluities  of 
its  treasure.  He,  too,  was  in  some  degree  confined  by  the 
Virgilian  form,  from  which  he  has  borrowed,  with  no  great 
success,  a  few  pieces  of  what  is  commonly  called  the  epic 
machinery.  Yet  Camoens  was  not  prevented  by  the  same 
sort  of  belief  in  regard  to  the  proper  form  of  an  epic,  from 
interweaving  into  his  poem  every  thing  that  could  adorn  a 
national  heroic  poem,  and  from  doing  entire  justice  to  the 
materials  of  which  he  had  made  choice.  But  in  truth,  even 
had  his  ideas  of  epic  art  been  more  just,  I  doubt  whether 
Tasso  could  ever  have  attained  the  same  success.  He  be- 
longs, upon  the  whole,  rather  to  the  class  of  poets  who  re- 
present themselves  and  their  own  exquisite  feelings,  than  of 
those  who  can  create  in  their  strength  of  imagination  another 
world,  and  lose  individual  feelings  in  the  luxury  of  their 
own  inventions.  The  most  beautiful  parts  of  his  poem  are 
episodes  which  might  have  been  introduced  with  equal  pro- 
priety into  any  other  epic,  and  have  no  strict  connection  with 
the  subject  of  the  Jerusalem.  The  magic  of  Armida,  the 
beauty  of  Clorinda,  and  the  love  of  Erminia, — these  passa- 
ges, and  such  as  these,  are  the  things  that  bind  us  to  Tasso  ; 
forms  of  which  our  German  poet  has  made  Tasso  himself 
to  say : — 

They  are  not  shadows  that  produce  a  dream, 
I  know  they  are  eternal,  for  they  are.* 

In  Tasso's  lyrical  poems  there  is  a  glow  of  passion,  and 
an  inspiration  of  unfortunate  love,  which  delight  us  even 
more  than  the  little  pastoral  of  Aminta,  although  that  too  is 
throughout  impregnated  with  the  feeling  of  love.     We  feel  in 

*  Goethe. 


264  DANTE  AND  TASSO  COMPARED. 

these  poems  what  the  true  fountain  of  love  poetry  is,  and 
cannot  help  contrasting  them  in  a  very  favourable  manner 
with  the  artificial  and  cold  sonnets  of  the  school  of  Petrarch. 
Tasso  is  altogether  a  poet  of  feeling;  and  as  Ariosto  is 
throughout  a  painter,  so  over  the  language  and  versification 
of  Tasso  there  is  poured  forth  the  whole  charm  of  music ;  a 
circumstance  which  has,  without  doubt,  greatly  contributed 
to  render  him  the  favourite  poet  of  the  Italians.  His  popu- 
larity exceeds  very  much  that  of  Ariosto.  Individual  parts 
and  episodes  of  his  poem  are  frequently  sung  in  the  gondo- 
las of  the  Arno  and  the  Po;  and  the  Italians  having  no  ro- 
mantic ballads  like  those  of  the  Spaniards,  have,  by  cutting 
down  the  Jerusalem  into  fragments,  supplied  themselves  with 
a  body  of  ballads  by  far  more  harmonious,  graceful,  noble, 
and  poetical,  than  was  ever  possessed  by  any  other  people. 
Perhaps  this  mode  of  dividing  their  great  poem  was  the  best 
both  for  the  enjoyment  and  the  feeling  of  it,  for  there  is  in 
truth  very  little  to  be  lost  by  throwing  aside  the  connection 
of  the  poem  as  a  whole.  How  little  satisfied  Tasso  himself 
was  with  his  own  epical  art,  is  sufficiently  evident  from  the 
many  changes  and  remodellings  (for  the  most  part  unfortu- 
nate ones)  which  his  great  poem  underwent.  The  first  of 
his  attempts  was  a  mere  romance  of  chivalry ;  afterwards,  in 
the  decline  of  life,  he  entirely  recast  the  whole  of  the  Jeru- 
salem, upon  which  his  fame  is  founded,  sacrificing  to  the 
morose  morality  which  he  had  adopted,  all  the  most  delight- 
ful passages  in  the  poem,  and  introducing,  throughout  the 
whole  work,  a  cold  and  destructive  allegory,  little  calculated 
to  make  up  for  what  he  had  taken  away.  He  also  attempted 
a  Christian  epic  on  the  subject  of  the  Creation.  But  even 
with  poetical  powers  much  more  powerful  than  his,  how 
could  it  have  been  possible  to  extend  a  few  mysterious  words 
of  Moses  into  as  many  cantos  with  any  portion  of  success  ? 
In  speaking  of  Dante  I  have  already  said  something  on  the 
poetical  treatment  of  such  subjects,  and  I  mention  this  poem 
of  Tasso  here  chiefly  because  it  was  this  in  particular  which 
Milton  had  before  his  eyes.  In  his  poem  of  the  Creation, 
Tasso  laid  aside  the  use  of  rhyme,  although  that  forms  in 
truth  the  greatest  charm  of  many  of  his  productions,  and 
although  no  poet  ever  possessed  the  same  command  over  the 
instrument  which  he  did  j  so  severe  a  critic  was  Tasso  of 


CAMOENS  AND  TASSO  COMPARED.  265 

his  own  poems.  I  do  not  however  think  that  we  should  judge 
equally  hardly  of  him  ;  he  certainly  does  indulge  in  a  few 
plays  of  thought,  or  concetti,  as  they  are  called,  but  he  has 
beauties  sufficient  to  atone  for  more  than  all  his  defects. 
What  sort  of  an  idea  of  poetry  can  remain  to  us,  if  we  take 
from  it  the  liberty  to  be  a  play  of  fancy  ?  If  we  are  deter- 
mined to  weigh  and  balance  every  thought  so  strictly,  there 
is  no  question  that  nothing  will  remain  with  us  but  the  so- 
briety of  prose.  Even  in  prose,  if  we  analyze  it  with  suffi- 
cient accuracy,  we  shall  easily  discover,  in  the  works  of  the 
best  writers,  images,  here  and  there,  which  are  not  perfectly 
just.  Many  of  the  fanciful  thoughts  of  Tasso  are  not  only 
full  of  meaning,  but  beautiful  as  images.  A  poet  of  feeling 
and  of  love  may  well  be  pardoned  such  trifling  errors  ;  faults 
of  the  same  kind  may  be  found  even  in  these  amatory  poems 
of  the  ancients,  which  are  usually  held  up  by  modern  critics 
like  the  head  of  the  Gorgon,  a  terrible  image  of  classical 
strength  and  purity,  in  opposition  to  the  extravagant  fancy  of 
the  romantic  poets. 

If  we  regard  Tasso  merely  as  a  musical  poet  of  feeling,  it 
forms  in  truth  no  proper  subject  of  reproach,  that  he  is  in  a 
certain  sense  uniform,  and  throughout  sentimental.  Unifor- 
mity of  this  sort  seems  to  be  inseparable  from  that  poetry 
which  is  in  its  nature  lyrical ;  and  I  confess  it  seems  to  me 
even  a  beauty  in  Tasso,  that  he  has  spread  this  soft  breath  of 
elegy  even  over  the  representation  of  the  charms  of  sense. 
But  an  epic  poet  must  be  richer  in  every  thing ;  he  must  be 
multiform ;  he  must  embrace  a  whole  world  of  circumstan- 
ces— the  spirit  of  the  past  and  of  the  present,  of  his  nation 
and  of  nature :  he  must  have  command,  not  over  one  chord 
alone,  but  be  master  of  the  whole  complicated  instrument  of 
feeling.  In  this  sort  of  poetical  wealth  Camoens  is  far  the 
superior  of  Tasso ;  in  his  epic  poem  there  are  even  many 
passages  of  tender  feeling  and  of  love,  which  may  sustain  a 
comparison  with  the  most  beautiful  parts  of  Tasso.  In  him, 
too,  amidst  all  the  splendour  and  charm  of  his  southern  ima- 
gination, there  breaks  through  at  times  a  tone  of  delightful 
lamentation  and  sorrow  ;  and  he  is  entitled  to  the  name  of  a 
romantic  poet,  even  had  he  no  other  claim,  because  he  is 
entirely  penetrated  with  the  glow  and  inspiration  of  love. 
But  he  unites  the  picturesque  fulness  of  Ariosto  with  the 

23 


266  CrARINl's  PASTOR  FIDO. 

musical  magic  of  Tasso  ;  and  what  is  far  more  important, 
he  connects  both  of  these  with  the  serious  dignity  of  the  true 
heroic  poet — an  attribute  which  Tasso  rather  wished  for 
than  possessed. 

After  what  I  have  said,  you  will  easily  perceive  that  I 
make  no  secret  of  preferring  Camoens  to  either  of  the  other 
great  Catholic  epic  poets,  Ariosto  and  Tasso.  I  am,  how- 
ever, willing  to  confess,  that  such  judgments  as  these  are  at 
all  times  produced  more  or  less  by  personal  feeling,  for  of 
all  those  component  parts  which  make  up  the  excellence  of 
a  poet,  a  few  only  can  be  subjected  to  the  decision  of  general 
principles,  while  far  more  is  left  to  be  approved  or  disap- 
proved of,  according  as  it  may  happen  to  suit  the  fancy  or 
feeling  of  the  individual.  There  is  a  well  known  anecdote 
of  Tasso,  which  I  cannot  help  wishing  to  recall  to  your  re- 
collection :  it  is  said  that  when  he  was  asked  which  of  the 
Italian  poets  was,  in  his  opinion,  the  greatest,  he  replied,  not 
without  considerable  emotion,  that  Ariosto  was  the  second, 
— the  self  love  of  a  poet  makes  him  set  so  exclusive  a  value 
on  those  qualities  which  he  himself  possesses.  A  lover  of 
poetry  is  apt  to  be  prejudiced  in  the  same  way  in  favour  of 
those  which  he  is  himself  most  capable  of  feeling. 

I  believe  that  in  Tasso  the  poetical  language  of  Italy  ap- 
peared with  as  much  of  the  noble  and  graceful  dignity  of  the 
old  Roman,  as  it  could  have,  without  throwing  totally  aside 
the  nature  and  beauty  peculiar  to  its  own  construction.  After 
his  time,  the  leaning  to  the  antique  became  every  day  stronger, 
not  only  in  respect  to  form  and  style  of  writing,  but  also  to 
subjects.  The  last  great  poet  of  the  yet  flourishing  period, 
Guarini,  also  a  poet  of  love  like  Tasso,  shews  himself  in 
many  individual  passages  of  his  lyrical  pieces,  to  have  been 
possessed  of  deeper  thought,  and  even  master  of  a  more  ele- 
vated style,  than  was  ever  attained  by  the  poet  of  Jerusalem. 
But  in  the  love  poems  of  Tasso,  the  strain  of  feeling  is  cer- 
tainly more  natural  and  charming.  Guarini's  Arcadian 
drama,  the  Pastor  Fido,  is  without  any  laboured  imitation, 
and  although  quite  full  of  real  feeling  and  love,  entirely  im- 
pregnated with  the  spirit  of  antiquity,  and  even  in  the  form 
of  its  composition,  great  and  noble  like  the  drama  of  the 
Greeks.  Upon  the  whole,  the  theatrical  part  of  the  elder 
Italian  literature  is  by  no  means  the  most  brilliant  one,  and 


ITS  CHARACTERISTIC  BEAUTIES.  267 

their  attempts  at  reviving  the  tragedy  of  the  ancients  have 
been  above  all  miserably  cold  and  unsuccessful ;  it  is  some 
compensation  for  this,  that  so  much  perfection  was  reached 
in  a  new  species  of  writing  which — at  least  as  used  drama- 
tically— is  quite  peculiar  to  Italy.  The  superiority  of  the 
Italians,  in  this  respect,  has  been  acknowledged  by  the  other 
nations  of  Europe ;  I  doubt  whether  any  modern  poem  has 
been  so  much  admired  and  so  often  translated  as  the  Pastor 
Fido.  In  France  itself,  down  to  the  time  of  Corneille,  it 
was  the  favourite  model  of  imitation.  As  a  drama,  indeed, 
it  was  by  no  means  a  work  fitted  to  form  a  path,  and  estab- 
lish a  theatre,  and  in  so  far  it  may  be  said  to  be  very  deficient 
in  merit.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  lyrical  poetry  of  the 
Italians  never  took  a  bolder  flight  than  in  some  of  the 
choruses  and  particular  speeches  of  this  poem.  In  treating 
of  Tasso,  I  have  already  spoken  of  that  play  of  thought  pe- 
culiar to  the  Romanic  love  poets,  and  the  concetti  of  the 
Italians.  The  same  grounds  of  apology  which  Tasso  poS' 
sesses,  may  in  general  be  pleaded  in  favour  of  Guarini,  al- 
though it  must  be  admitted  that  some  passages  are  too  remote 
from  the  natural  and  the  innocently  playful,  too  coldly  elabo- 
rate and  artificial  to  admit  of  any  exculpation.  Guarini  has 
a  few  passages  which  might  seem  not  unworthy  of  the  noble 
and  serious  style  of  a  great  poet  of  antiquity ;  but  he  certainly 
touches  the  limit  of  that  region  of  voluptuous  taste  in  which 
Marino  appears  to  have  delighted — a  poet  who  has  united 
every  thing  of  luxuriant  and  effeminate  which  is  to  be  found 
in  Ovid,  or  any  of  the  ancient  amatory  poets,  with  all  of  play- 
ful and  conceited  which  can  be  gathered  out  of  Petrarch, 
Tasso,  and  Guarini,  and  blended  them  all  together  into  one 
sea  of  luscious  sweetness,  which  is  the  more  disagreeable  to 
good  taste  because  every  part  of  the  flood  has  the  appearance 
of  proceeding  from  the  fountain  not  of  nature  but  of  imitation. 
The  poetry  of  Spain,  in  its  separated  situation,  was  both 
much  longer  upheld,  and  much  more  happily  developed. 
The  imitation  of  the  antique  was  less  predominant,  because 
the  national  feeling  was  more  acute  and  lively.  For  the 
eame  reason,  the  poetry  of  Spain  was  more  connected  with 
the  "present ;  romance  writing  acquired  a  point  of  excellence 
far  above  what  is  known  among  any  other  people,  and  the 


268  DON  QUIXOTTE  OF  CERVANTES. 

theatre  became,  not  only  the  most  original,  but  also  the 
richest  in  Europe. 

In  poetry,  the  language  of  Spain  has  never  had  any  one 
era  which  can  be  taken  as  a  complete  model  of  perfection 
for  all  other  periods ;  and  although  in  later  times  Garcilaso, 
and  the  writers  of  his  time,  are  commonly  enough  talked  of 
as  classics,  this  is  only  in  a  very  limited  meaning  of  the 
word.  The  poetical  language  of  Spain  remained  at  all 
times  free ;  a  great  deal  too  much  art  has,  indeed,  been  at 
times  employed  upon  it,  and  it  has  often  been  formed  into 
an  appearance  far  too  intensely  poetical.  But  at  no  time 
has  it  been  subjected  to  any  universal  rule,  excepting  only 
that  which  regards  the  prevalent  system  of  metre.  This 
appears  so  much  the  more  remarkable,  because  even  in  the 
earliest  times  the  prose  language  of  the  Spaniards  attained 
a  form  the  most  fixed  and  regular;  the  sharpest  precision 
has  there  become  so  much  a  second  nature,  that  while  the 
prose  of  other  languages  has  for  the  most  part  tended  to 
corruption  in  the  way  of  neglect  and  carelessness,  theirs  has 
rather  had  to  struggle  with  errors  of  an  opposite  description. 
The  danger  has  been  that  of  degenerating  from  extreme  ac- 
curacy and  acuteness  into  a  sort  of  over  nicety,  for  which 
they  only  have  a  precise  name — Ahudeza.  Yet  of  this  de- 
fect there  is  no  trace  in  some  of  the  best  Spanish  writers, 
among  whom  the  first  place  is  unquestionably  due  to  Cer- 
vantes. In  his  writing,  the  prose  authors  of  Spain  possess 
a  model  of  perfection,  pure  and  exquisite,  such  as  has  never 
been  attained  by  her  poets,  chiefly,  it  is  probable,  on  account 
■  of  the  extreme  luxuriance  of  imagination  and  invention  by 
which  they  are  distinguished. 

The  great  work  of  Cervantes  is  deserving  of  its  fame,  and 
of  the  admiration  of  all  the  nations  of  Europe,  (which  it  has 
now  enjoyed  for  more  than  two  centuries,)  not  merely  on  ac- 
count of  the  beauty  of  its  style,  and  the  perfection  of  its  nar- 
rative ;  not  merely  because,  of  all  works  of  wit,  it  is  the 
richest  in  spirit  and  invention ;  but  also  because  it  is  a  most 
lively  and  altogether  epic  picture  of  the  life  and  peculiar 
character  of  Spaniards.  It  is  from  this  that  it  derives  its 
ever-enduring  charm  and  value,  while  the  many  imitations 
of  it,  produced  in  France  and  England,  are  already  forgotten 
or  in  a  fair  way  of  becoming  so.    What  I  once  said  before,  in 


THE  OTHER  WRITINGS  OF  CERVANTES.  269 

speaking  of  poetical  works  of  Avit, — that  in  such  works  the 
writer  should  be  careful  so  to  adorn  with  a  rich  effusion  of 
poetry  his  narrative,  machinery,  and  the  whole  of  his  lan- 
guage, as  to  preserve  undegraded  his  title  to  the  name  of  a 
poet,  receives  a  strong  confirmation  from  the  example  of 
Cervantes.  It  is  common  enough  to  hear  critics  who  talk 
of  him  enlarge  altogether  upon  his  satire,  and  say  nothing  of 
his  poetry ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  while  satire  is  alike 
good  to  all  the  world,  his  poetry  is  exquisitely  Spanish.  But 
he  who  is  capable  of  studying  and  relishing  Cervantes  aright, 
well  knows  that  mirth  and  seriousness,  wit  and  poetry,  are 
mingled  with  success  elsewhere  unparalleled  in  this  rich  pic- 
ture of  life,  and  that  of  no  one  of  these  elements  can  the 
worth  and  beauty  be  appreciated  unless  we  observe  how  it  is 
graced  and^dorned  by  the  juxtaposition  or  absolute  infusion 
of  the  others.  The  other  prose  works  of  Cervantes,  his  pas- 
toral romance  Galatea,  his  novels,  and  the  pilgrim  romance 
which  he  wrote  last  of  all,  partake  more  or  less  in  these 
qualities  of  style  and  invention  which  distinguish  his  Don 
Cluixote — a  work  which  is  entirely  unique  in  species,  and 
which,  the  more  it  is  imitated,  appears  even  the  more  inimi- 
table. This  work  is  the  proudest  ornament  of  Spanish  lite- 
rature ;  and  with  justice  may  the  Spaniards  be  proud  of  a 
romance,  which,  as  an  universal  national  work,  has  been 
equalled  by  no  other  writer  of  this  order,  and  which,  as  a 
picture  of  the  life,  manners,  and  spirit  of  a  nation,  is  almost 
entitled  to  be  classed  with  the  most  admirable  productions  of 
the  epic  muse. 

23* 


( 


\ 


LECTURE  XII. 


OF  ROMANCE — DRAMATIC    POETRY    OF    THE    SPANIARUS SPENSER,  SHAKE- 
SPEARE, AND  MILTON AGE  OF  LEWIS  XIV. THE  FRENCH  THEATRE. 


The  romance  of  Cervantes  has  been,  notwithstanding-  its 
high  internal  excellence,  a  dangerous  and  unfortunate  model 
for  the  imitation  of  other  nations.  The  Don  Quixote,  a 
work  in  its  kind  of  unexampled  invention,  has  been  the  ori- 
gin of  the  whole  modern  romances,  and  of  a  crowd  of  un- 
successful attempts  among  French,  English,  and  Germans, 
the  object  of  which  was  to  elevate  into  a  species  of  poetry 
the  prosaic  representation  of  the  actual  and  the  present.  To 
say  nothing  of  the  genius  of  Cervantes,  which  stands  entirely 
by  itself,  and  was  sufficient  to  secure  him  from  many  of  the 
faults  of  his  successors,  the  situation  in  which  he  cultivated 
prose  fiction  was  fortunate  far  above  what  has  fallen  to  the 
lot  of  any  of  them.  The  actual  life  in  Spain  in  his  day  was 
much  more  chivalric  and  romantic  than  it  has  ever  since 
been  in  any  country  of  Europe.  Even  the  want  of  a  very 
exact  civil  subordination,  and  the  free,  or  rather  lawless  life 
of  the  pro\'inces,  might  be  of  use  to  his  imagination. 

In  all  these  attempts  to  raise  the  realities  of  Spanish  life 
by  wit  and  adventure,  or  by  the  extraordinary  excitements 
of  thought  and  feeling,  to  a  species  of  poetic  fiction,  we  can 
perceive  that  the  authors  are  always  anxious  to  create  for 
themselves,  in  some  way  or  other,  the  advantages  of  a  poetic 
distance ;  if  it  were  only  in  the  life  of  Italian  artists,  a  sub- 
ject frequently  treated  in  German  romances,  or  in  that  of 
American  woods  and  wildernesses,  one  very  comimon  among 
those  of  foreiofners.  Even  when  the  scene  of  the  fable  is 
laid  entirely  at  home,  and  within  the  sphere  of  the  common 
citizen  life,  the  narrative,  so  long  as  it  continues  to  be  narra- 
tive, and  does  not  lose  itself  altogether  in  wit,  humour,  or 


OF  ROMANCES.  271 

sentiment,  is  ever  anxious  to  extend,  in  some  degree,  the 
limit  of  that  reality  by  which  it  is  confined,  and  to  procure 
somewhere  an  opening  into  the  region  where  fancy  is  more 
at  liberty  in  her  operations :  when  no  other  method  can  be 
found,  travelling  adventures,  duels,  elopements,  a  band  of 
robbers,  or  the  intrigues  and  anxieties  of  a  troop  of  strollers, 
are  introduced  pretty  evidently  more  for  the  sake  of  the 
author  than  of  his  hero. 

The  idea  of  the  Romantic  in  these  romances,  even  in 
some  of  the  best  and  most  celebrated  of  them,  appears  to  co- 
incide very  closely  with  that  of  irregulated  and  dissolute  con- 
duct. I  remember  it  was  the  observation  of  a  great  philoso- 
pher, that  the  moment  the  world  should  see  a  perfect  police, 
the  moment  there  should  be  no  contraband  trade,  and  the 
traveller's  pass  should  contain  an  exact  portrait  and  biogra- 
phy of  its  bearer,  that  moment  it  would  become  quite  impos- 
sible to  write  a  good  romance ;  for  that  then  nothing  could 
occur  in  real  life  which  might,  with  any  moderate  degree  of 
ornament,  be  formed  into  the  groundwork  of  such  a  fiction. 
The  expression  seems  quaint,  but,  I  suspect,  the  opinion  is 
founded  very  nearly  upon  the  truth. 

To  determine  the  true  and  proper  relation  between  poetry, 
and  the  past  or  the  present,  involves  the  investigation  of  the 
whole  depth  and  essence  of  the  art.  In  general,  in  our  the- 
ories, with  the  exception  of  some  very  general,  meaningless, 
and  most  commonly  false  definitions  of  the  art  itself,  and  of 
the  beautiful,  the  chief  subjects  of  attention  are  always  the 
mere  forms  of  poetry,  things  necessary  without  doubt,  but  by 
no  means  sufficient,  to  be  known.  As  yet  there  has  scarcely 
been  any  theory  with  regard  to  the  proper  subject  of  poetry, 
although  such  a  theory  would  evidently  be  far  the  most 
useful  in  regard  to  the  effect  which  poetry  is  to  have  upon 
life.  In  the  preceding  discourses  I  have  endeavoured  to 
supply  this  defect,  and  to  give  some  glimpses  of  such  a  theory, 
wherever  the  nature  of  my  topics  has  fiirnished  me  with  an 
opportunity. 

With  regard  to  the  representation  of  actual  life  in  poetry, 
we  must,  above  all  things,  remember  that  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  the  actual  and  present  are  intractable  or  unwor- 
thy subjects  of  poetical  representation,  merely  because  in 
themselves  they  appear  less  noble  and  uncommon  than  the 


I 


272         OF  POETRY  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

past.  It  is  true  that  in  what  is  near  and  present,  the  com- 
mon and  unpoetical,  come  at  all  times  more  strongly  and 
more  conspicuously  into  view ;  while  in  the  remote  and  the 
past,  they  ocupy  the  distance,  and  leave  the  foreground  to 
be  filled  with  forms  of  greatness  and  sublimity  alone.  But 
this  difficulty  is  one  which  the  true  poet  can  easily  conquer; 
his  art  has  no  more  favourite  mode  of  displaying  itself  than 
in  lending  to  things  of  common-place,  and  every  day  occur- 
rence, the  brilliancy  of  a  poetic  illumination,  by  extracting 
from  them  higher  signification,  and  deeper  purpose,  and 
more  refined  feeling,  than  we  had  before  suspected  them  of 
concealing,  or  dreamed  them  to  be  capable  of  exciting. 
Still  the  precision  of  the  present  is  at  all  times  binding  and 
confining  for  the  fancy,  and  when  we,  by  our  subject,  im- 
pose so  many  fetters  upon  her,  there  is  always  reason  to 
fear,  that  she  will  be  inclined  to  make  up  for  this  restraint, 
by  an  excess  of  liberty  in  regard  to  language  and  description. 
To  make  my  views  upon  this  point  intelligible  to  you  in 
the  shortest  way,  I  need  only  recall  to  your  recollection 
what  I  said  some  time  ago,  with  regard  to  subjects  of  a  re- 
ligious or  Christian  import.  The  invisible  world,  the  Deity, 
and  pure  intellects,  can  never,  upon  the  whole,  be  with  pro- 
priety represented  by  us ;  nature  and  human  beings  are  the 
proper  and  immediate  subjects  of  poetry.  But  the  higher 
and  spiritual  world  can  be  everywhere  embodied  and  sha- 
dowed forth  in  our  terrestrial  materials.  In  like  manner 
the  indirect  representation  of  the  actual  and  the  present  is 
the  best  and  most  appropriate.  The  bloom  of  young  life, 
and  the  high  ecstasies  of  passion,  as  v/ell  as  the  maturity 
of  wise  reflection,  may  all  be  combined  with  the  old  tradi- 
tions of  our  nation  ;  they  will  there  have  more  room  for  ex- 
ertion, and  be  displayed  in  a  purer  light  than  the  present 
can  command.  The  oldest  poet  of  the  past.  Homer,  is  at 
the  same  time  to  us  a  describer  of  the  present  in  its  ut- 
most liveliness  and  freshness.  Every  true  poet  carries  into 
the  past  his  own  age,  and,  in  a  certain  sense,  himself  The 
following  appears  to  me  to  be  the  true  account  of  the  proper 
relation  between  poetry  and  time.  The  proper  business  of 
poetry  is  to  represent  only  the  eternal,  that  which  is,  at  all 
places,  and  in  all  times,  significant  and  beautiful ;  but  this 
cannot  be  accomplished  without  the  intervention  of  a  veil. 


SPANISH  DRAMATIC  POETRY.  273 

Poetry  requires  to  have  a  corporeal  habitation,  and  this  she 
finds  in  her  best  sphere,  the  traditions  of  a  nation,  the  recol- 
lections and  past  of  a  people.  In  her  representations  of  these, 
however,  she  introduces  the  whole  wealth  of  the  present,  so 
far  as  that  is  susceptible  of  poetical  ornament ;  she  plunges 
also  into  the  future,  because  she  explains  the  apparent  mys- 
teries of  earthly  existence,  accompanies  individual  life 
through  all  its  development,  down  to  its  period  of  termina- 
tion, and  sheds  from  her  magic  mirror  the  light  of  a  higher 
interpretation  upon  all  things  ;  she  embraces  all  the  tenses, 
the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future,  in  order  to  make  a  truly 
sensible  representation  of  the  eternal  or  the  perfect  time. 
Even  in  a  philosophical  sense,  eternity  is  no  nonentity,  no 
mere  negation  of  time,  but  rather  its  entire  and  undivided 
fulness,  wherein  all  its  elements  are  united,  where  the  past 
becomes  again  new  and  present,  and  with  the  present  itself, 
is  mingled  the  abundance  of  hope,  and  all  the  richness  of 
futurity. 

Although,  upon  the  whole,  I  consider  the  indirect  repre- 
sentation of  the  present  as  the  one  most  suitable  for  poetry  ; 
I  would  by  no  means  be  understood  to  be  passing  a  judg- 
ment of  condemnation  upon  all  poetical  works  which  follow 
the  opposite  path.  We  must  leave  the  artist  to  be  the  judge 
of  his  own  work.  The  true  poet  can  shew  his  power  even 
though  he  takes  a  wrong  way,  and  composes  works  which 
are  far  from  perfection  in  regard  to  their  original  foundation. 
Milton  and  Klopstock  must  at  all  times  be  honoured  as  poets 
of  the  first  class,  although  no  one  will  deny  that  they  have 
both  done  themselves  the  injustice  to  choose  subjects  which 
they  never  could  adequately  describe. 

In  like  manner,  to  Richardson,  who  erred  in  a  very  op- 
posite way,  by  trying  to  imitate  Cervantes  in  elevating  to 
poetry  the  realities  of  modern  life,  we  cannot  refuse  the 
praise  of  a  great  talent  for  description,  and  of  having  at 
least  manifested  great  vigour  in  his  course,  although  the 
goal  which  he  wished  to  reach  was  one  entirely  beyond  his 
power. 

The  spirit  of  Spanish  fiction  has  distinguished  itself  with 
equal  excellence,  and  with  far  more  richness,  upon  the  the- 
atre than  in  romance.  The  lyrical  poetry  of  feeling  is  the 
fruit  of  solitary  love  and  inspiration  j  even  when  it  does  not 


274  SPAIN  IN   THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY. 

confine  itself  to  the  immediate  circumstances  of  an  individual, 
when  it  seizes  upon  an  age  and  a  nation,  it  is  still  powerful 
only  as  the  emanation  of  individual  feeling.  But  heroic 
poetry  implies  a  nation,  one  which  either  is  now  or  has 
been,  one  which  possesses  recollections,  a  great  past,  a  le- 
gendary history,  an  original  and  poetical  mode  of  thinking 
and  observing,— a  mythology.  Both  of  these  species,  the 
lyric  as  well  as  the  epic,  are  much  more  the  children  of  na- 
ture than  of  art.  But  dramatic  poetry  is  the  production  of 
the  city  and  society ;  nay,  it  cannot  flourish  unless  it  have  a 
great  metropolis  to  be  the  centre  point  of  its  development. 
Such,  at  least,  is  its  most  natural  and  happy  situation ;  al- 
though schools  of  imitation  and  rivalry,  established  in  small- 
er spheres  of  action,  may  in  the  sequel  contend  at  times  not 
unsuccessfully  with  the  capital,  the  first  seat  of  the  dramatic 
art.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  perceiving  why  the  stages  of 
Madrid,  London,  and  Paris,  enjoyed  a  full  century  of  splen- 
dour ;  were  brought,  each  in  its  own  way,  to  perfection ; 
and  were  rich,  almost  to  superfluity,  long  before  either  Italy 
or  Germany  could  be  said  to  possess  any  thing  worthy, 
properly  speaking,  of  the  name  of  a  theatre.  For  although 
Rome  has  been,  even  from  antiquity,  the  capital  of  the 
church,  and  Vienna,  ever  since  the  fifteenth  century,  the 
seat  of  the  German  empire,  yet  neither  the  one  city  nor  the 
other  has  ever  become  the  metropolis  of  a  nation  in  the  same 
manner  with  those  three  great  cities  of  France,  England, 
and  Spain. 

As  the  Spanish  monarchy  was,  down  to  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  greatest  and  the  most  splendid  in 
Europe,  and  as  the  national  spirit  of  the  Spaniards  was  the 
most  developed,  so  the  stage  of  Madrid,  the  living  mirror  of 
Spanish  life,  was  the  first  which  arrived  at  its  period  of 
glory.  Its  riches  and  fulness  of  invention  have,  at  all  times, 
been  recognized  by  the  rest  of  Europe  ;  to  its  peculiar  form 
and  meaning,  to  the  true  spirit  and  sense  of  the  Spanish  Aia.- 
ma,  less  justice  has  been  done.  Had  it  no  other  advantage 
but  this,  that  it  is  thoroughly  romantic,  that  alone  would  be 
sufficient  to  render  it  an  object  well  worthy  of  attention ;  it 
would  be  a  very  interesting  thing  to  see  what  sort  of  dra- 
matic poetry  that  is,  which  is  the  pure  production  of  the 
chivalric  poetry  in  general,  and  of  that  peculiar  direction  of 


LOPE  DE  VEGA.  275 

fancy  which  belongs  to  modern  Europe  and  the  middle  ages. 
In  the  theatre  of  no  other  country  can  we  find  so  good  an 
example  of  this  as  in  the  Spanish,  which  always  remained 
quite  free  from  all  influence  and  imitation  of  the  antique ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Italians  and  French  have 
been  led  away  by  their  desire  to  renew  in  their  purity  the 
proper  tragedy  and  comedy  of  the  Greeks,  and  while  these 
models  (acting,  as  they  did,  chiefly  through  the  medium  of 
Seneca  and  the  older  French  plays)  have  not  been  without 
a  very  considerable  influence  even  upon  the  drama  of  the 
English. 

If  we  consider  the  Spanish  stage  in  its  first  celebrated 
lord  and  master.  Lope  de  Vega,  its  general  excellencies 
will  appear  to  us  only  in  a  dim  and  imperfect  light ;  and 
we  shall,  upon  the  whole,  form  no  very  high  opinion  of  the 
perfection  of  the  Spanish  drama:  so  hasty  and  redundant 
are  his  almost  innumerable  plays.  As  in  the  lyrical  songs 
of  one  poet,  so  also  in  all  the  dramatic  works  of  one  artist, 
there  may  in  general  be  observed  a  certain  uniformity  and 
resemblance,  which  must,  of  course,  lighten  very  much  the 
labour  of  his  composition.  In  the  dramas  not  only  of  one 
poet,  but  even  of  a  whole  age  or  an  entire  nation,  the  ground- 
work is  often  one  general  idea,  which  in  all  of  them  is 
properly  the  same,  although  in  each  it  is  presented  in  a  dif- 
ferent point  of  view,  and  acting  with  a  difl^erent  species  of 
operation ;  like  so  many  variations  of  a  juridical  theme,  or 
so  many  various  propositions  in  mathematics,  all  following 
from  the  adoption  of  the  same  general  principle.  When  a 
poet  has  once  clearly  and  thoroughly  comprehended  this 
idea,  and  fixed  upon  the  manner  in  which  he  is  to  use  it  for 
his  idea  and  his  stage,  provided  he  be  at  the  same  time  a 
perfect  master  of  language  and  theatrical  effect,  it  may  very 
easily  happen  that  he  shall  produce  a  very  great  number  of 
works  in  a  very  regular  form,  and  even  without  appearing 
to  have  been  guilty  of  negligence  either  in  regard  to  the  ex- 
pression or  the  arrangement  of  his  productions.  It  was  thus 
that  the  great  dramatists  of  antiquity  produced,  each  of  them, 
more  than  a  hundred  plays.  But  the  number  of  the  dramas 
of  Lope  de  Vega,  however  liberal  we  may  be,  must  cer- 
tainly surpass  all  limit  of  permitted  fertility.  The  greater 
part  of  them  must  have  been  not  composed,  in  any  proper 


276  GENIUS  OF  LOPE  DE  VEGA. 

sense  of  the  word,  but  dashed  off  in  the  manner  of  a  mere 
improvisatore.  I  admit  that  Lope,  among  all  dramatic  ready- 
writers,  and  bulky  writers  of  all  nations,  and  down  to  the 
very  latest  times,  is  the  first  and  the  most  of  a  poet,  in  rich- 
ness of  invention,  in  splendour  of  imagination,  and  in  the 
fire  and  strength  of  his  language.  The  two  last  qualities 
are  indeed  so  common  in  all  the  poetry  of  his  nation,  that 
we  need  scarcely  enlarge  upon  their  praise  as  belonging 
peculiarly  to  him.  Considered  by  itself,  this  swiftness  of 
dramatic  composition,  even  with  all  the  talent  and  fancy  of 
Lope  de  Vega,  is  by  no  means  excusable,  either  in  a  poetical 
or  in  a  moral  point  of  view.  A  strength  of  arrangement, 
and  a  steady  law,  are  so  much  the  more  necessary  for  the 
stage,  because  in  no  other  species  of  composition  are  care- 
lessness and  corruption  so  easily  tolerated,  in  no  other  are 
the  public  and  the  author  in  so  much  danger  of  leading  each 
other  astray.  How  easy  it  must  be  for  a  dramatist  of  such 
genius  as  Lope,  to  carry  his  age  beyond  all  limits  of  judg- 
ment; how  easily,  even  one,  without  any  very  splendid 
qualifications,  by  means  of  a  sort  of  theatrical  routine,  and  a 
little  skill  in  passionate  effect,  may  bring  the  public  taste  to 
such  a  point  that  all  higher  requisites  and  ideas  are  entirely 
forgotten ; — we  have  had  so  many  examples  of  all  this,  that 
it  would  be  quite  useless  to  expatiate  upon  it.  On  the  other 
side,  theatrical  success,  we  must  remember,  is  of  all  other 
means  of  excitement  the  strongest  and  most  irresistible  in 
its  operation  on  the  vanity  of  a  poet.  The  public  themselves 
are  in  general  the  first  to  spoil  a  favourite  dramatist ;  they 
express  so  much  satisfaction  with  his  early  and  imperfect  at- 
tempts, that  it  is  no  wonder  he  should  soon  consider  himself  as 
absolved  from  all  obligation  to  be  careful  in  his  compositions. 
This  danger  of  demagogic  corruption  and  anarchy  is  a  cir- 
cumstance which  was  often  remarked  and  lamented  by  the 
best  of  all  dramatic  judges,  the  ancients. 

However  much,  in  regard  to  some  other  species  of  poetry, 
as  for  example  that  which  is  properly  called  popular  poetry, 
our  indulgence  may  be  due  to  a  rapid  and  careless  method 
of  composition,  the  theatre  has  no  similar  claim.  The  stage 
is  entirely  a  creature  of  art,  and  even  although  hasty  and 
inaccurate  writing  may  be  tolerated  in  plays,  unless  their 
plan  be  clearly  laid,  and  their  purpose  profoundly  considered, 


THE  DRAMATIC  GENIUS  OF  CALDERON.  277 

they  want  the  very  essence  of  dramatic  pieces ;  unless  they 
be  so  composed,  they  may  indeed  amuse  us  with  a  view  of 
the  fleeting  and  surface  part  of  life,  and  of  the  perplexities 
and  passions,  but  they  can  have  none  of  that  deep  sense  and 
import,  without  which  the  concerns  of  life,  whether  real  or 
imitated,  are  not  worthy  of  our  study.  These  lower  excel- 
lencies of  the  dramatic  art  are  possessed  in  great  abundance 
by  Lope  de  Vega,  and  many  others  of  the  ordinary  Spanish 
dramatists ;  the  plays  of  these  men  display  great  brilliancy 
of  poetry  and  imagination,  but  when  we  compare  them  with 
the  profounder  pieces  of  the  same  or  of  some  other  stages, 
we  perceive  at  once  that  their  beauties  are  only  of  a  secon- 
dary class,  and  that  they  afford  no  real  gratification  to  the 
higher  parts  of  our  intellect.  How  little  these,  indeed,  are 
accustomed  to  be  taken  into  account,  we  may  easily  gather 
from  the  single  fact,  that  very  many  critics  usually  speak  of 
Calderon,  and  Lope  de  Vega,  as  poets  of  the  same  order, 
while  in  truth  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  two  men  more 
entirely  and  radically  dissimilar  both  in  mind  and  in  art.  If 
we  would  form  a  proper  opinion  of  the  Spanish  drama,  we 
must  study  it  only  in  its  perfection,  in  Calderon — ^the  last 
and  greatest  of  all  the  Spanish  poets. 

Before  his  time,  affectation,  on  the  other  hand,  and  utter 
carelessness  on  the  other,  were  predominant  in  the  Spanish 
poetry ;  what  is  singular  enough,  these  apparently  opposite 
faults  were  often  to  be  found  in  the  same  piece.  The  evil 
example  of  Lope  de  Vega  was  not  confined  to  the  depart- 
ment of  the  stage.  Elevated  by  his  theatrical  success,  like 
many  other  fluent  poets,  he  had  the  vanity  to  suppose  that 
he  might  easily  shine  in  many  other  species  of  writing,  for 
which  he  possessed,  in  truth,  no  sort  of  genius.  Not  con- 
tented with  being  considered  as  the  first  dramatist  of  his 
country,  nothing  less  would  serve  him  but  to  compete  with 
Cervantes  in  romance,  and  with  Tasso  and  Ariosto  in  the 
chivalric  epic.  The  influence  of  his  careless  and  corrupt 
mode  of  composition  was  thus  extended  beyond  the  theatre  ; 
while  the  faults  from  which  he  was  most  free,  those  of  ex- 
cessive artifice  and  affectation  in  language  and  expression, 
were  carried  to  the  highest  pitch  by  Gongora  and  Q,uevedo. 
Calderon  survived  this  age  of  poetical  corruptions  ;  nay,  he 
was  born  in  it,  and  he  had  first  to  free  the   poetry  of  his 

24 


278  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  CALDERON. 

country  from  the  chaos,  before  he  could  ennoble  it  anew, 
beautify  and  purify  it  by  the  flames  of  love,  and  conduct  it 
at  last  to  the  utmost  limit  of  its  perfection. 

This  incident  in  the  history  of  Spanish  poetry,  its  sudden 
rise  to  unexampled  excellence,  immediately  following  a  pe- 
riod of  unexampled  corruption,  is  one  very  well  worthy  of 
our  attention.  It  may  serve  as  a  sufficient  correction  of  the 
common-place  opinions  and  theories  on  which  the  doctrine 
of  regular  progress  and  decline  in  art  is  maintained.  For 
our  o\vn  age  and  nation  it  may  be  a  lesson  of  great  value,  to 
see  how,  from  the  midst  of  dead  artifice  and  coriupted  ex- 
crescence, the  imagination  and  poetry  of  Spain  sprung  at 
the  call  of  one  voice  into  light  and  beauty,  as  the  Phoenix 
is  regenerated  and  renewed  out  of  the  ashes  of  her  own 
deea)»-.  ^  

But  in  order  to  set  before  you  the  spirit  of  the  Spanish 
drama  as  it  appears  in  its  perfection  in  the  works  of  Calde- 
ron,  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  prefix  a  few  words  upon  the 
true  essence  of  the  dramatic  art  in  general,  according  to  the 
peculiar  views  which  I  have  adopted.  It  is  only  in  the  first 
and  lowest  scale  of  the  drama,  that  I  can  place  those  pieces 
in  which  we  are  presented  with  the  visible  surface  of  life 
alone,  the  fleeting  appearance  of  the  rich  picture  of  the  world. 
It  is  thus  that  I  view  them,  even  although  they  display  the 
highest  sway  of  passion  in  tragedy,  or  the  perfection  of  all 
social  refinements  and  absurdities  in  comedy,  so  long  as  the 
whole  business  of  the  play  is  limited  to  external  appearan- 
ces, and  these  things  are  brought  before  us  merely  in  per- 
spective, and  as  pictures  for  the  purposes  of  drawing  our  at- 
tention, and  awakening  the  sympathy  of  our  passions.  The 
second  order  of  the  art  is  that,  where  in  dramatic  representa- 
tions, together  with  passion  and  the  pictoric  appearance  of 
things,  a  spirit  of  more  profound  sense  and  thought  is  pre- 
dominant over  the  scene,  wherein  there  is  displayed  a  deep 
knowledge,  not  of  individuals  and  their  affairs  alone,  but  of 
our  whole  species,  of  the  world  and  of  life,  in  all  their  mani- 
fold shapes,  contradictions,  and  catastrophes,  of  man  and  of 
his  being,  that  darkest  of  riddles — as  such — as  a  riddle. 
Were  this  profound  knowledge  of  us  and  our  nature  the  only 
end  of  dramatic  poetry,  Shakespeare  would  not  merely  de- 
serve to  be  called  the  first  in  his  art  but  there  could  scarcely 


THE  END  OF  DRAMATIC  POETRY.  279 

be  found  a  single  poet,  either  among  the  ancients  or  the 
moderns,  worthy  for  a  moment  to  be  compared  with  him. 
But  in  my  opinion  the  art  of  the  dramatic  poet  has,  besides 
all  this,  yet  another  and  a  higher  end.  The  enigma  of  life 
should  not  barely  be  expressed  but  solved ;  the  perplexities 
of  the  present  should  indeed  be  represented,  but  from  them 
our  view  should  be  led  to  the  last  development  and  the  final 
issue.  The  poet  should  entwine  the  future  with  the  present, 
and  lay  before  our  eyes  the  mysteries  of  the  internal  man. 
This  is  indeed  something  quite  different  from  what  we  com- 
monly demand  in  a  tragedy  by  the  name  of  catastrophe. 
There  are  many  celebrated  dramatic  works  wherein  that 
sort  of  denouement,  to  which  I  here  allude,  is  altogether 
awanting,  or  which,  at  least,  have  only  the  outward  form, 
but  are  quite  destitute  of  the  internal  being  and  spirit  of  it. 
For  the  sake  of  brevity  I  may  here  refer  you  to  what  I  said, 
in  one  of  my  late  lectures,  concerning  the  three  worlds  of 
Dante,  and  of  the  art  with  which  he  has  represented  to  us 
three  great  classes  of  human  beings,  some  in  the  abyss  of 
•despair,  some  in  the  region  of  hope  and  purification,  some 
in  the  enjoyment  of  perfect  blessedness.  All  that  I  then  said 
may  be  applied  in  a  certain  way  to  the  dramas,  and  in  this 
sense  might  Dante  himself  be  called  a  dramatic  poet,  but  that 
he  has  chosen  to  give  us  only  a  series  of  catastrophes,  with- 
out setting  before  us,  except  by  some  casual  allusion,  the  ac- 
tions and  passions  of  which  these  catastrophes  are  the  result. 
Corresponding  to  these  denouements  of  human  destiny,  there 
are  also  three  modes  of  that  high,  serious,  dramatic  repre- 
sentation, which  sets  forth,  not  merely  the  appearances  of 
life,  but  also  its  deeper  purpose  and  spirit,  which  gives  us 
not  only  the  knot  but  the  solution  of  our  existence.  In  one 
of  these  we  lose  sight  of  the  hero  in  the  darkness  of  a  per- 
fect destruction ;  in  another  the  conclusion,  although  min- 
gled with  a  certain  dawn  of  pleasure,  is  yet  half  sorrowful 
in  its  impression ;  and  there  is  a  third,  wherein  out  of  misery 
and  death  we  see  a  new  life  arisen,  and  behold  the  illumina- 
tion of  the  internal  manT  To  shew  what  I  mean  by  dra- 
mas, whose  termination  is  the  total  ruin  of  their  heroes,  I 
may  mention  among  the  tragedies  of  the  moderns.  Wallen- 
stein, Macbeth,  and  the  Faustus  of  the  people.  The  dra- 
matic art  of  the  ancients  had  a  peculiar  fondness  for  this  alto- 


280  MODERN  TRAGEDIES. 

gether  tragical  catastrophe,  which  accorded  well  with  their 
belief  in  a  terrible  and  predestinating  fate.  Yet  a  tragedy 
of  this  kind  is  perhaps  the  more  perfect  in  proportion  as  the 
destruction  is  represented  not  as  any  thing  external,  capri- 
cious, or  predestinated,  but  as  a  darkness  into  which  the 
hero  has  sunk  step  by  step,  descending  not  without  free  Avill, 
and  in  consequence  of  his  OAvn  guilt.  Such  is  the  case  in 
those  three  great  modern  tragedies  which  I  have  cited. 

This  is,  upon  the  whole,  the  favourite  species  among  the 
ancients,  yet  their  theatre  is  not  without  some  beautiful  speci- 
mens of  the  second  and  milder  termination ;  examples  of  it 
occur  in  both  of  the  two  greatest  of  the  Greek  tragedians. 
It  is  thus  that  iEschylus,  after  he  has  opened  before  us  the 
darkest  abyss  of  sorrow  and  guilt,  in  the  death  of  Agamem- 
non, and  the  vengeance  of  Orestes,  closes  his  mighty  picture 
in  the  Eumenides  with  a  pleasing  feeling,  and  the  final  quel- 
ling of  the  spirit  of  evil  by  the  intervention  of  a  milder  and 
propitious  Deity.  Sophocles,  in  like  manner,  after  repre- 
senting the  blindness  and  the  fate  of  CEdipus,  the  miserable 
fate  and  mutual  fratricide  of  his  sons,  the  long  sorrows  of 
the  sightless  old  man  and  his  faithful  daughter,  is  careful  to 
throw  a  ray  of  cheering  light  upon  the  death  of  his  hero, 
and  to  depict  in  .snr.h  colours  his  departure  into  the  protec- 
tion of  pitying  and  expecting  deities,  as  to  leave  upon  our 
minds  an  impression  rather  of  soothing  and  gentle  melan- 
choly than  of  tragical  distress.  There  are  many  instances 
of  the  same  kind  both  in  the  ancient  theatre  and  the  modern ; 
but  few  wherein  the  working  of  the  passions  is  adorned  with 
so  much  beauty  of  poetry  as  in  these. 

The  third  method  of  dramatic  conclusion,  which  by  its 
representation  makes  a  spiritual  purification  to  be  the  result 
of  external  sorrows,  is  the  one  most  adapted  for  a  Christian 
poet,  and  in  this  the  first  and  greatest  of  all  masters  is  Calde- 
ron.  Among  the  great  variety  of  his  pieces  I  need  only  re- 
fer you  to  the  Devotion  of  the  Cross^  and  the  Steadfast  Prince^ 
plays  which  have  been  very  frequently  translated,  and  the 
remarkable  excellence  of  which  has  been,  upon  the  whole, 
pretty  generally  recognized.  The  Christianity  of  this  poet, 
however,  does  not  consist  so  much  in  the  external  circum- 
stances which  he  has  selected,  as  in  his  peculiar  feeling,  and 
the  method  of  treating  his  subject  which  is  most  commoa 


COMPARED  WITH  THESE  OF  THE  ANCIENTS.         281 

with  him.  Even  where  his  materials  furnish  him  with  no 
opportunity  of  drawing  the  perfect  development  of  a  new  life 
out  of  death  and  suffering,  yet  every  thing  is  conceived  in 
the  spirit  of  this  Christian  love  and  purification,  every  thing 
seen  in  its  light,  and  clothed  in  the  splendour  of  its  heavenly 
colouring.  In  every  situation  and  circumstance,  Calderon 
is,  of  all  dramatic  poets,  the  most  Christian,  and  for  that  very 
reason  the  most  romantic. 

Since  the  Spanish  poetry  remained  at  all  times  free  from 
foreign  influence,  and  throughout  purely  romantic, — since 
the  Christian  chivalric  poetry  of  the  middle  ages  continued 
with  this  nation  far  longer  than  with  any  other  even  down 
to  the  times  of  their  most  modern  refinement,  and  received 
among  them  a  form  more  elegant  than  elsewhere,  this  may 
appear  to  be  no  improper  place  for  saying  something  in 
general,  concerning  the  essence  of  the  romantic.  It  consists 
entirely  in  that  feeling  of  love  w^hich  is  predominant  in  the 
Christian  religion,  and  through  it  in  poetry  also,  by  w^hich 
sorrows  are  represented  as  only  the  way  to  happiness,  by 
which  the  tragic  serious  of  the  Greek  mythology,  and  hea- 
thenish antiquity,  is  softened  into  a  more  cheering  play  of 
fancy,  and  in  consequence  of  w^hich,  even  in  regard  to  the 
external  forms  of  representation  and  language,  every  thing 
is  selected  w^hich  seems  most  to  harmonize  with  this  feeling 
of  love  and  this  play  of  fancy.  In  this  sense  of  the  word, 
taking  the  romantic  to  mean  nothing  more  than  the  peculiar 
beauty  and  poetry  of  Christianity,  all  poetry  might  seem  to 
have  some  claim  to  the  epithet.  In  fact,  the  romantic  is  by 
no  means  inconsistent  with  the  ancients  and  the  true  antique. 
The  legends  of  Troy,  and  the  poems  of  Homer,  are  through- 
out romantic ;  so  is  all  of  the  really  poetic  kind  which  is  to 
be  found  in  the  old  verses  of  Indians,  Persians,  Arabians,  or 
Europeans.  Wherever  the  highest  life  is  comprehended 
and  represented  in  its  deeper  meaning,  there  are  to  be  heard 
at  least  some  echoes  of  that  godlike  love,  whose  centre  point 
and  full  harmony  lies  certainly  in  the  Christian  religion. 
Even  in  the  ancient  tragedians  the  echoes  of  this  feeling  are 
here  and  there  scattered,  in  spite  of  the  general  darkness  and 
worldliness  of  their  conceptions,  the  internal  love  in  the 
midst  of  all  their  errors  and  false  images  of  horror,  breaks 
through  in  noble  sentiments,  and  diffuses  the  light  of  its 

24* 


282  ELEMENTS  OF  DRAMATIC  COMPOSITION. 

sublimity  over  all  their  bewildered  imaginations.  iEschylus 
and  Sophocles  are  not  worthy  of  admiration  on  account  of 
their  inimitable  composition  alone,  but  of  their  profound  feel- 
ing and  sentiment.  In  none  of  the  -vivid  and  natural  poets 
of  antiquity  is  this  charm  entirely  wanting.  The  romantic 
is  not  opposed  to  the  ancients  and  the  antique,  but  to  those 
false  and  frigid  erudite  among  ourselves,  who  strive  to  imi- 
tate the  form  without  being  gifted  with  any  portion  of  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  antique ;  and  those  other  moderns  who, 
labouring  under  an  equal  mistake,  attempt  to  increase  their 
influence  upon  active  life  by  making  the  present  their  sub- 
ject, and  fail  in  their  attempt,  because  the  confinement  to 
which  they  thus  voluntarily  condemn  themselves  is  more 
than  sufficient  to  neutralize  any  advantage  which  they  might 
have  hoped  to  derive. 

It  Avail  easily  be  understood  that  between  these  three  species 
of  dramatic  conclusion  and  representation, — that  of  destruc- 
tion, of  reconciliation,  and  of  glorification,  there  must  be 
room  for  many  intermediate  steps  and  blendings.  It  was 
only  for  the  purpose  of  letting  you  know  what  I  conceive  to 
be  the  true  termination  of  a  dramatic  piece,  that  I  have  for- 
mally and  separately  described  these  three  species, — al- 
though, after  all,  they  certainly  are  to  be  found  separately 
as  well  as  mingled.  Even  the  opposition  of  ancients  and 
moderns  is  not  a  perfect  one,  but  depends  merely  on  the  pre- 
ponderance of  one  element — a  more  or  a  less.  Even  among 
the  ancient  plays  we  may  find  some  approximations  to  that 
method  of  tragic  representation  which  terminates  in  purifica- 
tion, and  in  like  manner,  we  may  find,  among  the  moderns, 
tragedies  of  utter  destruction,  which  can  sustain  a  comparison 
with  the  most  powerful  masterpieces  of  the  ancients,  with 
whom  that  was  the  more  favourite  species  of  catastrophe. 

Since,  however,  the  excellence  of  dramatic  representation 
lies  in  the  internal  depth  of  feeling,  and  the  hidden  mysteries 
of  the  spiritual  life,  it  is  evident  that  the  works  of  antiquity, 
whatever  may  be  their  perfection  as  pieces  of  writing,  and 
as  high  models  to  stimulate  our  ambition,  they  can  in  par- 
ticular instances  furnish  no  fit  rule  or  example  for  our  imi- 
tation. In  general  we  may  be  assured,  that  in  regard  to  the 
higher  drama  and  tragedy,  there  cannot  be  such  a  thing  as 
a  rule  useful  for  all  nations.     Even  the  modes  of  feeling 


STATE  OF  THE   SPANISH  DRAMA.  283 

among  the  Christian  peoples  (connected  as  they  are  by  their 
common  religion)  here,  where  the  pecuHar  principle  of  the 
internal  life  should  be  most  powerfully  brought  forward,  are 
found  to  be  so  essentially  different,  that  it  would  be  foolish  to 
require  any  universal  harmony,  or  to  imagine  that  any  one 
nation  could  lay  down  effectual  laws  for  the  other.  In  re- 
gard to  tragedy  and  the  higher  drama  at  least,  so  intimately 
are  these  connected  with  internal  life  and  peculiar  feeling, 
that  every  nation  must  be  the  inventor  of  its  own  form  and 
its  own  rules. 

I  am  very  far,  then,  from  wishing  to  see  the  Spanish  drama 
or  Calderon  adopted  as  a  perfect  and  exclusive  model  for  our 
theatre ;  but  I  am  so  sensible  of  the  high  perfection  to  which 
the  Christian  tragedy  and  drama  attained  in  the  hands  of 
that  great  and  divine  master,  that  I  think  he  cannot  be  too 
much  studied  as  a  distant  and  inimitable  specimen  of  excel- 
lence, by  any  one  who  would  make  the  bold  attempt  to  rescue 
the  modern  stage,  either  in  Germany  or  elsewhere,  from  the 
feeble  and  ineffectual  state  into  which  it  has  fallen.  Least 
of  all  is  the  external  form  of  the  Spanish  drama  suitable  for 
us.  Its  flowery  fulness  of  images  and  southern  fancies  may 
be  excellent,  where  this  overflowing  wealth  is  nature,  but  to 
imitate  these  qualities  elsewhere  is  the  height  of  absurdity. 
The  remarks  which  I  have  already  made  on  more  occasions 
than  one,  with  regard  to  the  poetical  representation  of  mysti- 
cal subjects,  may  be  applicable  in  general  to  those  plays  of 
Calderon  which  are  in  their  import  allegoric  and  Christian. 

The  chief  fault  of  Calderon — for  even  he  is  not  without 
them — is,  that  he,  in  other  respects  the  best  of  all  romantic 
dramatists,  carries  us  too  quickly  to  the  great  denouement 
of  which  I  have  spoken  above ;  for  the  effect  which  this 
produces  on  us  would  have  been  very  much  increased  by 
our  being  kept  longer  in  doubt,  had  he  more  frequently 
characterized  the  riddle  of  human  life  with  the  profundity 
of  Shakespeare, — had  he  been  less  sparing  in  affording  us, 
at  the  commencement,  glimpses  of  that  light  which  should 
be  preserved  and  concentrated  upon  the  conclusion  of  the 
drama.  Shakespeare  has  exactly  the  opposite  fault,  of  too 
often  placing  before  our  eyes,  in  all  its  mystery  and  perplex- 
ity, the  riddle  of  life,  like  a  sceptical  poet,  without  giving  us 
any  hint  of  the  solution.     Even  when  he  does  bring  his 


284  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  DRAMA. 

drama  to  a  last  and  a  proper  denouement,  it  is  much  more 
frequently  to  one  of  utter  destruction  after  the  maimer  of  the 
old  tragedians,  or  at  least  to  one  of  an  intermediate  and  half 
satisfactory  nature,  than  to  that  termination  of  perfect  purifi- 
cation which  is  predominant  in  Calderon.  In  the  deepest 
recesses  of  his  feeling  and  thought,  it  has  always  struck  me 
that  Shakespeare  is  far  more  an  ancient — I  mean  an  ancient 
not  of  the  Greek  but  of  the  Northern  or  Scandinavian  cast 
— than  a  Christian.  In  some  particulars  at  least  we  must 
allow  that  the  Spanish  drama  affords  the  best  of  all  models, 
particularly  in  regard  to  its  comedy,  which  is  in  every  re- 
spect thoroughly  romantic,  and  therefore  truly  poetical. 
Even  upon  the  stage  no  true  success  can  ever  attend  any 
attempts  to  raise  the  representation  of  the  prosaic  reality  to 
the  rank  of  poetry,  either  by  means  of  psychological  acu- 
men, or  the  wit  of  society;  and  whoever  compares  what  go 
on  other  stages  by  the  name  of  plays  of  intrigue  and  p/ö^?/5 
of  character^  with  the  romantic  witchery  of  the  pieces  of 
Calderon,  and  his  countrymen,  will  scarcely  be  able  to  find 
words  to  express  his  sense  of  the  immeasurable  superiority 
of  their  poetical  wealth  over  the  poverty  of  the  German  stage ; 
above  all,  over  what  passes  for  wit  in  the  comedies  with 
which  we  are  entertained. 

The  poetry  of  all  the  southern  and  Catholic  countries 
continued  throughout  the  sixteenth,  and  even  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  to  partake  of  the  same  qualities  and  undergo 
the  same  vicissitudes.  In  the  other  countries  of  Europe  a 
great  rupture  was  produced  by  the  reception  of  the  Protes- 
tant faith,  for  the  old  creed  could  not  be  driven  into  contempt 
Avithout  carrying  along  with  it  a  variety  of  images,  allu- 
sions, personifications,  poetic  traditions  and  legends,  and 
modes  of  poetical  composition,  which  were  more  or  less  in- 
timately connected  with  it.  As  among  the  Protestant  coun- 
tries, the  one  which  retained  most  of  the  old  system,  both  in 
regard  to  the  condition  of  the  clergy,  and  the  external  forms 
of  worship,  was  England,  so  here  also  was  poetry  first  cul- 
tivated in  a  rich  and  beautiful  manner,  and,  it  may  be  added, 
in  a  manner  resembling  in  every  important  particular,  the 
poetry  of  the  Catholic  south  ;  this  is  sufficiently  manifest  in 
Spenser,  Shakspeare,  and  Milton.  There  is  no  occasion  to 
recall  to  your  remembrance  how  fond  Shakespeare  is  of  ttie 


CHAUCER,  SPENSER,  AND  MILTON.  285 

romantic  of  the  chivalrous  time,  and  even  of  the  southern 
colouring  of  fancy ;  Spenser  is  himself  a  poet  of  chivalry, 
and  both  he  and  Milton  followed  romantic,  above  all^  " 
models.  The  nearer  literature  comes  to  ourselves,, 
her  productiveness  appears  in  these  mo'dern  times 
the  more  necessary  does  it  become  for  me  to  confir^^HRIf 
to  those  poets  and  those  writers  alone,  who  mark  the  perfec- 
tion of  language,  and  cultivation  in  their  nations,  and  are  on 
that  account  for  other  nations,  and  for  the  whole  world,  the 
most  important  and  instructive.  But  in  truth  these  three 
greatest  poets  of  England  contain  within  themselves  every 
thing  that  is  really  great  and  remarkable  in  regard  to  her 
elder  literature  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  ages. 

The  chivalrous  poem  of  Spenser,  the  Fairy  Q,ueen,  pre- 
sents us  with  a  complete  view  of  the  spirit  of  romance  which 
yet  lingered  in  England  among  the  subjects  of  Elizabeth  ; 
that  maiden  queen  who  saw  herself,  with  no  ordinary  de- 
light, deified  while  yet  alive,  by  such  playful  fancies  oi  my- 
thology and  the  muse.  Spenser  is  a  perfect  master  of  the 
picturesque  ;  in  his  lyrical  pieces  there  breathes  all  the  ten- 
derness of  the  Idyll,  the  very  spirit  of  the  Troubadours, 
Not  only  in  the  species  and  manner  of  his  poetry,  but  even 
in  his  language,  he  bears  the  most  striking  resemblance  to 
our  old  German  poets  of  love  and  chivalry.  The  history 
of  the  English  literature  was  indeed  quite  the  reverse  of 
ours.  Chaucer  is  not  unlike  our  poets  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury :  but  Spenser  is  the  near  kinsman  of  the  tender  and 
melodious  poets  of  our  older  time.  In  every  language  which 
is,  like  the  English,  the  product  of  the  blending  of  two  dif- 
ferent dialects,  there  must  always  be  two  ideals,  according 
as  the  poet  shall  lean  more  to  the  one  or  the  other  of  the 
elements  whereof  his  language  is  composed.  Of  all  the 
English  poets  the  most  Teutonic  is  Spenser;  while  Mil- 
ton, on  the  contrary,  has  an  evident  partiality  to  the  Latin 
part  of  the  English  tongue.  The  only  unfortunate  part  of 
Spenser's  poetry  is  its  form.  The  allegory  which  j^e  has 
selected  and  made  the  groundwork  of  his  chief  poem,  is  not 
one  of  that  lively  kind  which  prevails  in  the  elder  chival- 
rous fictions,  wherein  the  idea  of  a  spiritual  hero,  and  the 
mysteries  of  his  higher  vocation,  are  concealed  under  the 
likeness  of  external  adventures  and  tangible  events.     It  is 


28ß  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  SHAKESPEARE. 

only  a  dead  allegory,  a  mere  classification  of  all  the  virtues 
of  an  ethical  system;  in  short,  such  a  one,  that,  but  for 
)er  names  of  the  personages,  we  should  never  sus- 
)art  of  their  history  to  contain  "  more  than  meets 


liration  with  which  Shakespeare  regarded  Spen- 
'the  care  with  which  he  imitated  him  in  his  lyrical 
and  idyllic  poems,  are  circumstances  of  themselves  sufficient 
to  make  us  study,  with  the  liveliest  interest,  the  poem  of  the 
Fairy  Glueen.  It  is  in  these  minor  pieces  of  Shakespeare, 
that  we  are  first  introduced  to  a  personal  knowledge  of  the 
great  poet  and  his  feelings.  When  he  wrote  sonnets,  it 
seems  as  if  he  had  considered  himself  as  more  a  poet  than 
when  he  wrote  plays ;  he  was  the  manager  of  a  theatre,  and 
he  viewed  the  drama  as  his  business;  on  it  he  exerted  all 
his  intellect  and  power,  but  when  he  had  feelings  intense 
and  secret  to  express,  he  had  recourse  to  a  form  of  writing 
with  which  his  habits  had  rendered  him  less  familiar.  It  is 
strange  but  delightful  to  scrutinize,  in  his  short  effusions,  the 
character  of  Shakespeare.  In  them  we  see,  that  he  who 
stood  like  a  magician  above  the  world,  penetrating  with  one 
glance  into  all  the  depths,  and  mysteries,  and  perplexities  of 
human  character,  and  having  power  to  call  up  into  open 
day  the  darkest  workingf.«?  of  human  passions — that  this  great 
being  was  not  deprived  of  any  portion  of  his  human  sympa- 
thies by  the  elevation  to  which  he  was  raised,  but  preserved, 
amidst  all  his  stern  functions,  a  heart  overflowing  with  ten- 
derness, purity,  and  love.  His  feelings  are  intense,  profound, 
acute,  almost  to  selfishness,  but  he  expresses  them  so  briefly 
and  modestly,  as  to  form  a  strange  contrast  with  most  of 
those  poets  who  Avrite  concerning  themselves.  For  the 
right  understanding  of  his  dramatic  works,  these  lyrics  are 
of  the  greatest  importance.  They  show  us,  that  in  his  dra- 
mas he  very  seldom  speaks  according  to  his  own  feelings, 
or  his  own  thoughts,  but  according  to  his  knowledge.  The 
world  lay  clear  and  distinct  before  his  eyes,  but  between  him 
and  it  there  was  a  deep  gulf  fixed.  He  gives  us  a  portrait 
of  what  he  saw,  without  flattery  or  ornament,  having  the 
charm  of  unrivalled  accuracy  and  truth.  Were  understand- 
ing, acuteness,  and  profoundness  of  thought,  (in  so  far  as 
these  are  necessary  for  the  characterizing  of  human  life,)  to 


THE  PECULIARITIES  OF  SHAKESPEARE.  287 

be  considered  as  the  first  qualities  of  a  poet,  there  is  none 
worthy  to  be  compared  with  Shakespeare.  Other  poets 
have  endeavoured  to  transport  us,  at  least  for  a  few  moments, 
into  another  and  an  ideal  condition  of  mankind.  But  Shake- 
speare is  the  master  of  reality ;  he  sets  before  us,,  with  a 
truth  that  is  often  painful,  man  in  his  degraded  state,  in  this 
corruption,  which  penetrates  and  contaminates  all  his  being-, 
all  that  he  does  and  suffers,  all  the  thoughts  and  aspirations 
of  his  fallen  spirit.  In  this  respect  he  may  not  unfrequently 
be  said  to  be  a  satirical  poet ;  and  well,  indeed,  may  the  pic- 
ture which  he  presents  of  human  debasement,  and  the  enig- 
ma of  our  being,  be  calculated  to  produce  an  effect  far  more 
deep  and  abiding  than  the  whole  body  of  splenetic  and  pas- 
sionate revilers,  whom  we  commonly  call  by  the  name  of 
satiric  poets.  In  the  midst  of  all  the  bitterness  of  Shakespeare, 
we  perceive  continual  glimpses  of  thoughts  and  recollections 
more  pure  than  satirists  partake  in ;  meditation  on  the  ori- 
ginal height  and  elevation  of  man, — the  peculiar  tenderness 
and  noble  minded  sentiment  of  a  poet ;  the  dark  world  of 
his  representation  is  illuminated  with  the  most  beautiful 
rays  of  patriotic  inspiration,  serene  philanthropy,  and  glow- 
ing love. 

But  even  the  youthful  glow  of  love  appears  in  his  Romeo 
as  the  mere  inspiration  of  death,  and  is  mingled  with  the 
same  sceptical  and  melancholy  views  of  life  which,  in  Ham- 
let, give  to  all  our  being  an  appearance  of  more  than  natu- 
ral discord  and  perplexity,  and  which,  in  Lear,  carry  sor- 
row and  passion  into  the  utmost  misery  of  madness.  This 
poet,  who  externally  seems  to  be  most  calm  and  temperate, 
clear  and  lively, — with  whom  intellect  seems  every  where 
to  preponderate — who,  as  we  at  first  imagine,  regards  and 
represents  every  thing  almost  with  coldness, — is  found,  if 
we  examine  into  the  internal  feelings  of  his  spirit,  to  be  of 
all  others  the  most  deeply  sorrowful  and  tragic. 

Shakespeare  regarded  the  drama  as  entirely  a  thing  for 
the  people,  and  at  first  treated  it  throughout  as  such.  He 
took  the  popular  comedy  as  he  found  it,  and  whatever  en- 
largements and  improvements  he  introduced  into  the  stage, 
were  all  calculated  and  conceived  according  to  the  peculiar 
spirit  of  his  predecessors  and  of  the  audience  in  London. 
Even  in  the  earliest  of  his  tragic  attempts,  he  takes  posses- 


288  SHAKESPEARE  AND  MILTON  COMPARED. 

sion  of  the  whole  superstitions  of  the  vulgar,  and  mingles  in 
his  poetry,  not  only  the  gigantic  greatness  of  their  rude  tra- 
ditions, but  also  the  fearful,  the  horrible,  and  the  revolting. 
All  these,  again,  are  blended  with  such  representations  and 
views  of  human  debasement  as  passed,  or  still  pass,  Avith 
common  spectators  for  wit,  but  were  connected  in  the  depths 
of  his  reflective  and  penetrating  spirit,  with  the  very  diffe- 
rent feelings  of  bitter  contempt  or  sorrowful  sympathy.  He 
was  not,  in  knowledge,  far  less  in  art,  such  as,  since  the  time 
of  Milton,  it  has  been  usual  to  represent  him.  But  I  believe 
that  the  inmost  feelings  of  his  heart,  the  depths  of  his  pe- 
culiar, concentrated,  and  solitary  spirit,  could  be  agitated 
only  by  the  mournful  voice  of  nature.  The  feeling  by  which 
he  seems  to  have  been  most  connected  with  ordinary  men  is 
that  of  nationality.  He  has  represented  the  heroic  and  glo- 
rious period  of  English  history,  during  the  conquests  in 
France,  in  a  series  of  dramatic  pieces,  which  possess  all  the 
simplicity  and  liveliness  of  the  ancient  chronicles,  but  ap- 
proach, in  their  ruling  spirit  of  patriotism  and  glory,  to  the 
most  dignified  and  effectual  productions  of  the  epic  muse. 

In  the  works  of  Shakespeare  a  whole  world  is  unfolded. 
He  who  has  once  comprehended  this,  and  been  penetrated 
with  its  spirit,  will  not  easily  allow  the  effect  to  be  dimi- 
nished by  the  form,  or  listen  to  the  cavils  of  those  who  are 
incapable  of  understanding  the  import  of  what  they  would 
criticize.  The  form  of  Shakespeare's  writings  will  rather 
appear  to  him  good  and  excellent,  because  in  it  his  spirit  is 
expressed  and  clothed,  as  it  were,  in  a  convenient  garment. 
The  poetry  of  Shakespeare  is  near  of  kin  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Germans,  and  he  is  more  felt  and  beloved  by  them  than  any 
other  foreign,  I  had  almost  said,  than  any  vernacular,  poet. 
Even  in  England,  the  understanding  of  Shakespeare  is  ren- 
dered considerably  more  difficult,  in  consequence  of  the  re- 
semblance which  many  very  inferior  Avriters  bear  to  him  in 
those  points,  which  come  most  immediately  before  the  eye. 
In  Germany,  we  admire  Shakespeare,  and  are  free  from  this 
disadvantage ;  but  we  should  beware  of  adopting  either  the 
form  or  the  sentiment  of  this  great  poet's  writings  as  the  ex- 
clusive model  of  our  own.  They  are  indeed,  in  themselves, 
most  highly  poetical,  but  they  are  far  from  being  the  only 


OPPOSITION  TO  SHAKESPEARE.  289 

poetical  ones,  and  the  dramatic  art  may  attain  perfection  in 
many  other  ways  besides  the  Shakespearian. 

The  delightful  chivalry  of  Spenser,  and.the  freedom  of  the 
universal  Shakespeare,  were  misunderstood,  contemned,  and 
even  persecuted,  after  the  spirit  of  fanaticism,  which,  in  the 
days  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  had  existed  only  as  a  hidden 
disorder,  burst  forth  at  once  in  all  its  power  and  offensive- 
ness,  in  all  its  overwhelming  and  disgusting  virulence,  un- 
der Charles  I.  Shakespeare  was,  in  a  peculiar  manner,  an 
object  of  hatred  to  the  Puritans,  for  whom  he  certainly  seems 
to  have  had  no  partiality,  exactly  as  he  still  is  to  their  de- 
scendants, the  Methodists,  and  other  similar  sects,  which  are 
at  present  so  powerful  in  Britain.  But,  although  the  Puri- 
tans disliked  Shakespeare,  they  were  by  -no  means  without 
poetry ;  on  the  contrary,  in  the  bosom  of  their  sect  and  age, 
there  Avas  produced  a  poet  who  must  ever  be  classed  with 
the  first  and  most  remarkable  of  his  nation,  and  of  the  world. 
The  poetry  of  the  world  and  human  nature  was  held  as  un- 
lawful among  the  bigots ;  the  art  which  would  express  the 
image  of  that  time,  was  obliged  to  'be  entirely  directed  to- 
wards spiritual  concerns,  as  is1;he-case  with  the  ever-serious 
and  stately  muse  of  Milton.  The  Paradise  Lost  partakes  in 
all  those  difficulties  and  defects,  which,  as  I  have  already 
said,  attend  all  Christian  poems  which  attempt  to  make  the 
mysteries  of  our  religion  the  subjects  of  their  fiction.  It  is 
strange  that  Mihon  did  not  observe,  that  the  loss -of  Paradise 
forms  in  itself  no  complete  whole,  but  is  only  the  first  act  of 
the  great  Christian  history  of  man,  A^v^ierein  the  creation,  the 
fall,  and  the  redemption,  are  adl  equally  necessary  parts  of 
one  mighty  drama.  It  is  true  that  he  sought  afterwards  to 
remove  this  main  defect  by  the  addition  of  the  Paradise  Re- 
gained, but  this  poem  is  too  insignificant  in  its  purpose  and 
size  to  be  worthy  of  forming  the  keystone  to  the  great  work. 
When  compared  with  the  Catholic  poets,  Dante  and  Tasso, 
who  were  his  models,  Milton,  as  a  Protestant,  laboured  un- 
der considerable  disadvantages,  by  being  entirely  denied  the 
use  of  a  great  many  symbolical  repr-esentations,  histories,  and 
traditions,  which  were  in  their  hands  the  most  graceful  or- 
naments of  Christian  poetry.  He  was  sensible  of  this,  and 
attempted  to  make  amends  for  the  defect,  by  adopting  fables 
and  allegories  out  of  the  Koran  and  the  Talmud,  such  as  are 

25 


290  TENDENCIES  OF  THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE. 

extremely  unfit  for  the  use  of  a  serious  Christian  poet.  The 
excellence  of  his  epic  work  consists,  therefore,  not  in  the 
plan  of  the  whole^so  much  as  in  particular  beauties  and 
passages,  and  in  general  in  the  perfection  of  the  high  lan- 
guage of  poetry.  The  unusual  admiration  which  was  at- 
tracted to  Milton  in  the  eighteenth  century,  rested  upon  par- 
ticular traits  and  representations  of  paradisaic  innocence  and 
beauty,  and  upon  the  picture  of  hell,  and  the  character  of  its 
inhabitants,  whom  this  poet  has  depicted  in  a  style  great  and 
almost  antique,  as  giants  of  the  abyss.  Whether  it  has,  upon 
the  whole,  been  advantageous  for  the  English  language  of 
poetry,  that  it  has  been  leaning  more  to  the  Latin  than  to 
the  Teutonic  side,  that  it  has  followed  Milton  more  than 
Spenser, — this  is  a  point  which  I  cannot  help  viewing  as 
extremely  doubtful.  If  such  a  leaning,  however,  was  to 
take  place,  there  is  no  question  that  Milton  was  the  best 
model  in  that  way,  and  in  many  respects  well  entitled  to  be 
himself  the  standard  of  the  high  and  serious  poetical  lan- 
guage of  England.  But  the  truth  is,  that  any  exclusive 
standard  is  injurious  in  a  language  composed  of  opposite  ele- 
ments as  the  English  is  ;  for  it  is  the  very  nature  of  such 
a  language,  if  not  to  be  perpetually  vacillating  between  two 
extremes,  yet  certainly  to  retain  the  freedom  of  approxima- 
ting more  nearly  at  different  times  to  the  two  opposite  boun- 
daries of  its  domain.  The  whole  wealth  of  the  English 
tongue,  powerful  as  it  is  in  this  mixture,  and  the  various 
modifications  which  that  admits  of,  can  only  be  appreciated 
by  those  who  study  it  in  Shakespeare. 

After  the  Puritan  period  had  passed  away,  the  English 
literature  and  language  began  to  be  infected  with  another 
species  of  barbarism  ;  the  adoption  of  the  then  corrupted  but 
predominant  taste  of  the  French.  It  was  not  till  the  full  re- 
storation of  political  freedom  took  place,  at  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  that  intellect  recovered  from  the  op- 
pression under  which  it  had  lain.  So  deeply  had  the  foreign 
taste  taken  root,  that  the  eighteenth  century  had  commenced 
before  the  old  poets  of  the  nation  began  to  be  as  it  were  dis- 
covered, and  brought  into  light  out  of  oblivion. 

The  French  literature  possessed,  in  the  latest  Burgundian 
times,  under  Francis  I.  and  in  the  sixteenth  century,  a  great 
abundance  of  those  historical  memoirs  of  which  it  has  at  all 


EARLY  FRENCH  LANGUAGE.  291 

times  been  so  productive ;  pictures  after  the  life,  which,  by 
their  exquisite  representation  of  individuals,  and  by  the  im- 
mense number  of  traits,  the  immediate  offspring  of  personal 
observation,  have  the  effect  of  entirely  transporting  us  back 
into  the  manners,  society,  and  general  spirit  of  the  age  de- 
picted. The  peculiar  talent  for  applying,  in  a  tone  of  social 
intercourse,  a  species  of  light  and  sarcastic  philosophy  to  the 
ordinary  affairs  of  life,  was  in  like  manner  very  early  deve- 
loped among  the  French.  I  need  only  allude  to  two  great 
masters  in  these  two  different  walks  of  literature,  Philip  de 
Commines  and  Montaigne.  The  old  French  language  is 
for  the  most  part  careless,  inaccurate,  and  perplexed  with  in- 
tricate periods,  but  along  with  all  these  defects  it  possesses, 
in  the  hands  of  Montaigne,  and  some  of  the  better  writers  of 
the  old  time,  a  certain  naivete  and  natural  tone  of  sentiment, 
which  are  the  more  charming,  on  account  of  the  careless 
and  unaffected  style  in  which  they  are  expressed.  But  that, 
upon  the  whole,  the  French  language  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury was  extremely  ill  adapted,  either  for  poetry  or  wit — 
that  it  was  altogether  unworthy  of  being  compared  with  the 
languages  of  the  neighbouring  countries — and  gave  little 
promise  of  the  noble  and  tasteful  perfection  to  which  itself 
has  since  attained, — all  this  may  easily  be  gathered  from 
Marot  and  Rabelais,  in  spite  of  the  high  talents  which  both 
of  these  writers  possess.  If  we  take  a  general  view  of  the 
neglected,  uncultivated,  and,  in  many  respects,  barbarous 
condition  of  the  older  French  literature  and  language,  we 
cannot  fail  to  consider  the  changes  introduced  into  both,  by 
Cardinal  Richelieu,  and  the  academy  of  which  he  was  the 
founder,  as  a  very  necessary  and  fortunate  one.  The  lite- 
rary supremacy  of  the  new  academy  was  indeed,  like  the 
political  sway  of  its  head,  a  yoke  of  iron ;  its  operations  par- 
took of  the  celerity  and  decision  of  despotism.  The  regula- 
tion of  language  was  its  first  attempt,  and  this  certainly  was 
very  soon  crowned  with  the  most  complete  success.  In  prose 
this  is  universally  to  be  seen ;  not  only  the  first  and  most 
celebrated  writers,  but  we  might  almost  say,  all  the  waiters 
of  the  last  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  are  distinguished 
by  a  peculiar  charm  of  noble  style.  We  have  only  to  re- 
flect on  the  immense  number  of  letters,  memoirs,  (even  of 
women,)  tracts  of  men  of  business,  none  of  them  ever  intend- 


292  AGE  OF  VOLTAIRE. 

ed  for  the  press,  and  composed  by  persons  who  made  no  pre- 
tensions to  the  character  of  writers ;  all  these  are  remarkable 
for  a  peculiar  and  graceful  taste,  of  which  scarcely  any  trace 
is  to  be  discovered  among  the  French  authors  of  the  succeed- 
ing age.  Among  the  poets,  I  think  that,  at  the  same  period, 
Racine  attained,  in  language  and  versification,  a  point  of  har- 
monious perfection,  even  beyond  what  has  been  reached  by 
Milton  in  English,  or  even  Virgil  in  Latin,  and  very  far 
superior  to  any  thing  which  has  ever  since  been  seen  in 
France.  With  a  view  to  the  poetry  itself,  and  even  for  its 
language,  it  is  true  there  is  much  reason  to  wish  that,  along 
with  this  skilful  perfection,  a  little  more  freedom  had  been 
left ;  that  the  elder  French  poetry  of  the  chivalrous  period, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  produced  not  a  little  of  beautiful 
and  lovely,  both  in  regard  to  language  and  invention,  had 
not  been  so  entirely  and  without  exception  thrown  aside.  It 
might  have  been  quite  possible  to  unite,  as  was  done  by  the 
Italians,  and  by  some  other  nations,  the  perfection  of  a  rich 
and  earnest  style  with  the  poetical  spirit  of  chivalry.  The 
French  language  and  poetry  might  then  have  preserved  a 
great  deal  more  of  that  romantic  tendency  and  old  poetical 
freedom  which  Voltaire  so  often  wished  they  could  regain, 
and  which  he  himself  attempted,  although  with  very  imper- 
fect success,  to  restore.  Yet  such  a  forgetting  and  total  con- 
temning of  all  that  has  gone  before  is  inseparable  from  every 
great  and  entire  change,  even  in  literature.  It  was  a  revo- 
lution; as  might  have  been  expected,  much  secret  opposition 
at  all  times  remained  against  the  harsh  sway,  and  this  be- 
came more  and  more  apparent,  when,  in  the  days  of  the 
Regent  and  Lewis  XV.  the  French  learned  to  think,  with 
even  increasing  earnestness,  after  the  freedom  of  the  English, 
not  only  in  civil  affairs,  but  also  in  literature  and  in  language. 
In  consequence  of  the  irregular,  and  in  part  ill-intentioned 
manner  wherein  these  inclinations  were  gratified,  and  the 
foreign  modes  introduced  and  rendered  predominant,  there 
arose,  during  the  time  of  these  princes,  that  corruption  of 
taste  which,  having  gradually  attained  its  summit,  broke  out 
into  the  wildest  appearances  of  anarchy,  even  before  the  re- 
volution, and  which,  like  other  rebels  will,  I  fear,  be  with 
great  difficulty  ever  completely  reconciled  to  the  restoration 
of  the  ancient  obedien.ce. 


REVIVAL  OF  FRENCH  POETRY.  293 

The  true  flourishing  period  of  the  French  poetry  was  the 
latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.     Ronsard,  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  was  only  the  remote  forerunner  of  the  great  poets  of 
the  age  of  Lewis  XIV. ;  Voltaire,  in  the  eighteenth,  was  only 
their  ingenious  follower,   who  attempted,  with  sometimes 
great,  and  sometimes  very  indifferent  success,  to  supply  what 
he  conceived  to  be  the  chief  defects  of  the  poets  of  his  own  time. 
The  true  defect  which  presses  most  severely  on  the  French 
poetry  is  this,  that  the  cultivation  of  the  more  artificial  species 
was  not  preceded  by  any  truly  classical,  successful,  and  nation- 
al epic  poem.    Ronsard,  indeed,  attempted  this,  nor  is  he  with- 
out fire  and  energy,  but  his  style  is  full  of  false  bombast ;  as 
it  often  happens  that  when  any  one  attempts  to  make  a  sud- 
den escape  from  barbarous  rudeness,  he  is  very  apt  to  fall 
into  the  opposite  defect  of  far-sought,  pedantic,  and  artificial 
expression.     Of  all  the  poets,  even  including  those  of  Italy, 
who  have  corrupted  their  language  by  desiring  to  make  it 
too  much  like  that  of  antiquity,  the  defect  is  most  visible  in 
the  writings  of  Ronsard.     Even  the  choice  of  the  subject  in 
his  Pranciade,  must  be  considered  as  extremely  unhappy. 
Had  a  French  poet  chqgen  some  part  of  the  ancient  national 
history  to  be  the  groundwork  of  an  epic  poem,  he  might 
have  been  excused  for  introducing,  by  way  of  episode,  the 
fable  which  traces  the  Franks  from  the  heroes  of  Troy — an 
absurd  fable  to  be  sure,  but  one  w^hich  was  very  commonly 
believed  among  the  knights  and  minstrels  of  the  middle  ages. 
But  it  was  certainly  an  unfortunate  idea  to  think  of  making 
such  a  foolish  legend  the  very  basis  of  the  epopee.     The 
achievements  and  fortunes  of  St.  Lewis  might  in  many  re- 
spects, have  appeared  the  best  subject  of  an  epic  poem  for  a  poet 
of  old  France ;  for  they  stand  in  the  most  intimate  connection 
with  the  whole  world  of  romance,  and  in  the  midst  of  ail  the 
seriousness  of  historic  truth,  and  the  associations  of  patriotism 
and  piety,  connected  with  the  adventures  of  a  sainted  hero, 
present  to  the  fancy  as  wide  a  range  as  could  have  been  pro- 
duced by  the  most  perfect  rejection  of  every  thing  either  true 
or  natural.     The  only  difficulty  was  that  presented  by  the 
ill-fated  termination  of  the  crusade  of  St.   Lewis.     In  the 
story  of  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  which  was  selected  by  Chape- 
lain,  the  difficulty  consisted  in  this,  that  the  heroine  who  de- 
livered France,  was  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  her  enemies, 

25* 


294        PROGRESS  OF  THE  FRENCH  DRAMA. 

and  abandoned  to  a  shameful  death  by  the  hands  of  her  own 
countrymen,  who  had,  in  the  former  part  of  her  life,  deified 
and  adored  her.  The  same  thing  which  has  often  happened 
in  the  history  of  French  heroes,  occurred  in  literature  to 
Ronsard.  He  w^as  praised  beyond  all  bounds  in  his  own 
lifetime,  and  exalted  to  the  very  heavens ;  immediately  after- 
wards he  fell  to  the  dust,  and  past  into  the  most  perfect  obli- 
vion. But  the  name  of  Ronsard  is  still  one  which  must  not 
be  omitted  in  the  history  of  literary  France ;  for  it  is  unde- 
niable that  the  great  Corneille,  the  friend  and  admirer  of 
Chapelain,  had  formed  himself  in  the  elder  school  of  Ron- 
sard,  or  at  least  reminds  us,  every  now  and  then,  of  the  pe- 
culiarities of  his  diction. 

The  tragedy  of  the  French  is  considered  by  themselves 
as  the  most  brilliant  paxt  of  their  literature,  and  as  such  has 
ever  attracted  the  chief  attention  of  other  nations.  Their 
tragedy  expresses  so  abundantly  their  national  character  and 
mode  of  feeling,  that  there  is  no  difficulty  in  conceiving  why 
they  should  have  come  to  think  so  highly  of  it,  even  al- 
though the  subjects  of  its  earlier  productions  are  almost 
never  taken  from  their  own  natioi^al  history.  It  is  not  in- 
deed to  be  denied,  that  all  these  Greeks,  Romans,  Spaniards, 
and  Turks,  whom  it  represents  to  us,  are  Frenchmen  in 
many  things  besides  their  language ;  yet  it  is  certainly  unfor- 
tunate that  the  French  tragedy  has  remained  almost  entirely 
foreign,  and  very  rarely  represented  French  heroes.  The 
circumstance  is  probably  to  be  explained  by  the  want  of 
any  successful  and  universally  known  French  epic  poem. 
Besides,  the  most  tragical  incidents  in  the  old  French  his- 
torj?-  could  not  fail  to  excite  disagreeable  recollections  and 
comparisons,  ill  adapted  for  the  purposes  of  a  stage  entirely 
dependent  upon  the  court.  It  was  the  great  defect  in  French 
literature,  that  an  authoritative  tone  of  appeal  to  the  national 
feeling  was  kept  up  by  no-  one  species  of  serious  poetry — 
above  all,  that  this  was  utterly  lost  sight  of  by  their  first 
tragedians.  The  defect  was  well  understood  by  Voltaire, 
and  he  attempted  to  remedy  the  evil  by  choosing  subjects 
out  of  the  old  French  history,  and  more  generally  by  intro- 
ducing the  feelings  and  manners  of  the  chivalrous  period 
upon  the  stage.  The  national  feelings  which  he  endeavour- 
ed to  excite,  did  not  begin  to  display  themselves  till  conside- 


FRENCH  TRAGEDY.  295 

rably  after ;  but  the  glory  is  indisputably  his,  of  having  suc- 
ceeded, in  romantic  tragedy,  beyond  any  other  of  his  coun- 
trymen. 

Although,  however,  the  subjects  of  French  tragedy  are, 
with  a  few  exceptions,  foreign,  yet  this  whole  department  of 
their  literature  is,  without  doubt,  in  the  highest  degree  ex- 
pressive of  the  peculiar  turn  and  feeling  of  the  French  spirit 
and  character.  I  therefore  gladly  recognize  in  it  a  species 
of  poetry  highly  perfect  in  its  execution,  and  thoroughly  na- 
tional in  its  tendency ;  but  the  more  natural  it  is,  the  less  is 
it  adapted  to  be  the  standard  and  model  of  any  other  theatre. 
It  is  the  duty  of  every  nation  to  be  the  inventors  and  crea- 
tors of  their  own  drama. 

The  form  of  the  French  tragedy  is  regarded  by  most  as  a 
mere  imitation  of  the  Greek,  and  judged  of  by  that  standard ; 
but  it  ought  to  be  recollected  that  the  great  masters  of  the 
French  stage  were  themselves  the  first  who  suggested  the  fact 
to  us,  and  pointed  this  out  in  their  prefaces,  as  the  proper  point 
of  view  from  which  their  productions  should  be  contemplated. 
Racine  appears  in  this  respect  to  the  greatest  advantage ;  he 
speaks  with  a  true  and  lively  knowledge  of  the  Greeks, 
which  we  should  in  vain  seek  for  in  any  other  of  the  French 
writers ;  and  if  his  judgment  be  not  always  satisfactory  to 
us,  (for  the  Greeks  have  been  much  more  accurately  studied 
since  his  time  than  before  it,)  we  can  yet  recognize,  in  all 
that  he  says,  a  feeling  of  the  excellence  of  their  art  and 
poetry,  which  none  but  great  poets,  such  as  Racine  himself 
was,  are  capable  of  possessing.  Corneille,  in  his  prefaces, 
is  always  battling  with  Aristotle  and  his  commentators, 
who  are  indeed  very  often  much  in  his  way,  till  at  the  close 
we  find  him  ratifying  either  a  total  capitulation  or  a  hollow 
truce  with  those  fatal  enemies  of  all  poetical  freedom.  We 
cannot  avoid  being  surprised  at  the  humility  with  which 
this  mighty  genius  seems  to  submit  himself  to  fetters  so  con- 
fining, and  so  entirely  self-imposed.  The  prefaces  and  dis- 
sertations of  Voltaire  always  open  with  the  same  assertions, 
namelyj  that  the  French  nation,  and,  if  possible,  still  more 
the  French  stage,  is  the  first  in  the  world,  and  that  neverthe- 
less Corneille  and  Racin«,  with  all  their  excellencies,  have 
lefl  very  much  to  be  done.  The  reader  is  commonly  lefl 
in  a  situation  which  enables  him  very  easily  to  discover  who 


296  PECULIARITIES  OF  FRENCH  POETRY. 

is,  in  Voltaire's  opinion,  the  great  genius  destined  to  supply 
all  these  defects,  and  to  surpass  Corneille  and  Racine  as 
much  as  they  do  the  tragedians  of  foreign  nations. 

That  the  form  of  the  Grecian  tragedy,  and  the  celebrated 
treatise  of  Aristotle,  (as  it  is  understood  by  them,)  have  in 
many  respects  confined  and  injured  the  French  poets — that 
a  great  part  of  the  law  of  the  three  unities,  more  particularly 
of  those  of  time  and  place,  is  absurd,  and  in  total  opposition 
to  the  true  nature  of  poetry,  in  which  we  do  not  consider 
physical  possibility  with  arithmetical  exactness,  but  rather 
judge  according  to  the  effect  produced  on  the  imagination 
by  a  verisimilitude  not  historical  but  poetical, — all  this  has 
been  so  frequently  handled  since  the  time  of  Lessing,  that 
it  is  needless  to  revive  a  contest  which  has  been  so  often 
fought  with  the  same  issue.  There  is  only  one  observation 
which  I  shall  make,  and  that  is  of  the  historical  kind;  of  all 
the  French  writers,  the  one  who  did  most  to  establish  the 
enslaving  influence  of  the  mistaken  Greek  models  and  cri- 
tics, was  Boileau.  How  hurtful  the  effects  of  his  precepts 
must  have  been  on  the  French  poetry,  may  be  gathered 
from  the  one  fact,  that  he  treats  Corneille  with  almost  the 
same  severity  as  Chapelain.  What  gives  the  most  perfect 
idea  of  the  man  is,  to  my  view,  that  well  known  maxim  of 
his,  "of  a  rhyming  couplet  the  last  verse  should,  if  possible, 
be  first  made."  Instead  of  the  true  judgment  and  feeling  of 
art,  in  his  own  criticism,  he  is  fond  of  a  species  of  ridicule 
which  is  in  general  by  no  means  the  most  delicate ;  and  in- 
stead of  poetry,  he  is  most  anxious  for  a  full  and  perfect 
rhyme.  I  perfectly  agree  with  the  opinion  of  Racine,  who 
wrote  in  these  terms  to  his  son,  concerning  his  friend  Boi- 
leau, "  Boileau  is  an  excellent  man,  but  at  bottom  he  knows 
absolutely  nothing  about  poetry." 

Another  great  rule  of  this  critic  is  the  one  borrowed  from 
Horace,  according  to  which  a  work  of  intellect  should  be 
as  many  years  before  it  is  pubhshed,  as  a  human  child  lies 
months  in  the  womb  before  it  is  born.  In  spite,  however, 
of  all  the  authority  of  Boileau,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
Athalie  of  Racine,  and  the  Cid  of  Corneille,  which  I  must 
always  hold  to  be  the  two  most  glorious  productions  of 
French  poetry,  were  neither  of  them  subjected  to  any  such 
process  of  tedious  elaboration,  but  both  brought  at  once  be- 


CORNEILLE,  RACINE,  VOLTAIRE.  297 

fore  the  world  in  the  inspiration  and  glow  of  their  first  con- 
ception. These  two  creations,  the  finest  of  which  the 
French  stage  can  boast,  may  best  inform  us  what  height 
that  stage  has  reached,  and  at  what  point  it  has  been  obliged 
to  stop  in  its  imitation  of  the  nobler  drama  of  the  Greeks. 

However  little  the  modern  expounders  of  Aristotle  may- 
be aware  of  its  consequences,  the  fact  itself  is  sufficiently 
certain,  that  the  lyrical  songs  form  the  essential  part  in  the 
tragedy  of  the  ancients  ;  that  the  dialogue  is  a  mere  appen- 
dix and  interlude  to  the  chorus,  not  the  chorus  to  the  dia- 
logue ;  and  that  he  who  would  imitate  this  species  of  writ- 
ing with  success,  must  be  at  least  as  much  a  lyrical  as  a 
dramatic  poet.  The  Cid  of  Corneille  is  intensely  lyrical, 
and  the  tone  of  this  inspiration  alone  gives  it  that  magical 
power,  against  which  envy  and  criticism  are  of  no  avail, 
Racine,  in  his  Athalie,  has  restored  the  chorus  of  antiquity, 
with  many  alterations  no  doubt,  but  in  a  manner  which 
seems  to  me  exquisitely  adapted  for  the  purposes  which  he 
had  in  view.  Had  the  French  tragedy  advanced  farther 
in  the  path  pointed  out  by  its  two  greatest  masters  in  their 
two  most  excellent  productions,  I  have  no  doubt  it  might 
have  approached,  much  more  nearly  than  it  has  done,  to  the 
power  and  dignity  of  the  antique ;  many  of  the  narrow  fet- 
ters, imposed  by  mere  prosaic  misunderstanding,  would  of 
themselves  have  dropt  away,  and  the  genius  of  the  drama, 
being  more  at  liberty,  would  certainly  have  attempted 
achievements  of  higher  ambition  than  any  to  which  it  has 
as  yet  aspired. 

The  universal  custom  of  striking  out  the  lyrical  part  of 
the  ancient  tragedy,  was  productive  of  a  very  great  incon- 
venience ;  more  particularly  when  the  subject  of  the  drama, 
happened  to  be  one  of  those  same  mythological  legends 
which  had  of  old  been  handled  by  the  Greeks.  When  the 
lyrical  part  is  taken  away,  the  plot  was  found  to  be  too  Httle 
to  fill  up  the  tragedy,  and  recourse  was  had  to  the  same 
means  of  supplying  the  vacant  space,  which  had  been  adopt- 
ed by  the  ancients  themselves  when  their  drama  was  on  its 
decline.  The  plot  was  thickened  by  a  crowd  of  interpolated 
intrigues  extremely  hurtful  to  the  purpose  and  dignity  of 
tragedy,  or  else  the  whole  was  filled  up  with  that  rhetoric 
of  the  passions,  Avhich  every  tragical  subject  afiJbrds  such 


298  RHETORIC  OF  FRENCH  FLAYS. 

easy  means  of  introducing.  In  one  point  of  view  this  last 
expedient  has  been  of  great  advantage  to  the  French  tragedy, 
it  has  lent  to  it  a  strength  which  it  wants  in  all  other  re- 
spects, and  enabled  it  to  express,  with  great  effect,  the  cha- 
racter and  spirit  of  a  nation,  among  whom,  in  all  their  rela- 
tions, rhetoric  has  always  exerted  the  greatest  influence — 
whose  private  life  itself  is  filled  in  a  great  measure  with  this 
very  rhetoric  of  the  passions.  Besides,  a  certain  measure 
of  this  rhetoric  is  a  necessary  and  indispensable  element  of 
all  dramatic  representation.  The  thing  is,  no  doubt,  over- 
done in  the  French  tragedy;  but  its  preponderance  there  is 
founded  upon  national  feeling,  and  any  attempt  to  imitate 
the  peculiarity  would  be  quite  absurd  among  any  foreign 
people — more  particularly  among  those  who  have  greater 
feeling  for  poetry,  than  natural  talent  for  rhetoric. 

The  partiality  of  the  French  for  this  rhetorical  part  of 
their  tragedy  is  so  great,  that  the  decision  of  the  audience  is 
founded  much  more  upon  the  oratory  of  the  individual 
speeches,  than  the  dramatic  connection  and  effect  of  the 
whole  piece.  But  if  we  attend  to  those  parts  of  their  dxama 
of  which  they  themselves  are  in  general  negligent,  and  study 
in  particular  those  plays  which  have  a  true  and  poetical  de- 
nouement of  the  kind  which  I  have  above  described,  we  shall 
find  that,  even  in  this  respect,  the  French  tragedy  is  the 
child  of  the  antique  ;  that  its  termination  is  in  general  one 
of  complete  destruction,  or  that,  if  there  be  any  softening,  the 
sorrow  still  continues  to  be  by  far  the  predominant  material. 
There  are  indeed  a  few  delightful  exceptions.  In  his  Atha- 
lie,  Racine  shows  himself  to  be  a  Christian  poet,  and  brings 
victory  out  of  the  conflict ;  and  in  the  Alzire,  in  like  man- 
ner, death  and  suffering  are  represented  as  the  avenues  of 
eternal  life  and  blessedness.  This  last  play  is  the  master- 
piece of  Voltaire ;  in  it  he  appears  indeed  worthy  of  his  two 
illustrious  predecessors. 


LECTURE  XIII. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY — BACON,  HUGO  GROTIÜS,  DES- 
CARTES, BOSSUET,  PASCAL CHANGE  IN  THE  MODE  OF  THINKING SPIRIT 

OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY — PICTURE    OF  THE  ATHEISM   AND    REVO- 
LUTIONARY SPIRIT  OF  THE  FRENCH. 


The  seventeenth  century  was  rich  in  distinguished  writers 
not  only  in  elegant  literature,  poetry,  and  eloquence,  but 
also  in  the  sciences  and  in  philosophy.  The  philosophy 
and  system  of  thinking  which  belonged  to  the  eighteenth 
century,  which  during  that  period  extended  themselves  over 
all  the  departments  of  literature,  and  even  acquired  a  most 
determinate  influence  over  the  fate  of  men  and  of  nations, — 
these  were  not  without  their  precursors  in  the  age  immedi- 
diately  preceding ;  although  it  is  true  that  the  first  founders 
and  establishers  of  the  new  doctrines  soon  ceased  to  attract 
much  attention,  after  theix  labours  were  surmounted  by  the 
more  imposing  structures  of  their  successors.  It  is  abso- 
lutely necessary,  however,  to  take  into  view  Bacon,  Des- 
cartes, Locke,  and  some  other  of  the  heroes  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  before  we  can  rightly  depict  or  understand  the  true 
nature  of  those  intellectual  and  moral  changes  which  were 
introduced  by  Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  not  only  into  France, 
but  into  all  Europe,  and  in  general  into  the  whole  spirit  of 
the  eighteenth  century. 

The  sixteenth  century  was  the  age  of  ferment  and  strife, 
and  it  was  only  towards  its  close  that  the  human  mind  began 
to  calm  and  collect  itself  after  the  violent  convulsion  it  had 
undergone.  With  the  seventeenth  century  commenced  that 
new  mode  of  reflection  and  inquiry  to  which  the  way  had 
been  laid  open  by  the  restoration  of  classical  learning,  the 
great  improvement  in  natural  science,  and  that  universal 
shaking  and  separation  of  faith  occasioned  by  the  reforma- 
tion of  Luther.     The  first  name  to  which  we  turn  is  that  of 


300    PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE    SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY. 

the  great  Bacon.  This  mighty  genius,  by  carrying  the 
spirit  of  inquiry  out  of  the  verbal  contentions  of  the  dead 
schools,  into  the  regions  of  experience,  above  all  of  life  and 
nature,  has  become  the  father  of  modern  physics ;  he  made 
and  completed  many  illustrious  discoveries  himself,  of  many 
more  he  seems  to  have  had  a  dim  and  imperfect  foresight ; 
it  is  the  work  of  ages  to  follow  out  the  hints  which  are 
dropped  by  such  a  spirit  in  the  progress  of  its  excursions. 
By  means  of  his  rich  and  indefatigable  intellect,  the  whole 
sciences  of  experience  have  been  immeasurably  enlarged,  or 
rather  they  have  been  entirely  regenerated;  the  common 
shape  of  mind,  nay,  we  may  say,  the  common  shape  of  life, 
in  modern  Europe,  has  received  a  spark  of  new  animation 
from  the  inspiring  touch  of  this  Prometheus.  The  danger- 
ous consequences  produced  by  the  injudicious  extension  of 
his  principles,  at  the  time  when  his  followers  and  admirers 
in  the  eighteenth  century  thought  they  could  -derive  more 
than  he  had  ever  dreamed  of,  from  experience  and  the  senses, 
— the  laws  of  life  and  commerce,  and  the  just  notion  of  faith 
and  hope, — and  threw  away  from  them,  as  mysticism,  what- 
ever cannot  be  proved  by  the  common  experience  of  sense  : 
these,  indeed,  were  alarming  and  reprehensible,  but  they 
cannot  be  with  justice  ascribed  to  the  spirit  of  Bacon.  I 
need  only  recall  to  your  recollection  one  celebrated  saying 
of  his,  which  has  by  no  means  become  obsolete,  that  philo- 
sophy, when  studied  superficially,  leads  to  unbelief  and  athe- 
ism, but  when  profoundly  understood  is  sure  to  produce 
veneration  for  God,  and  to  render  faith  in  him  the  ruling 
principle  of  our  life.  Not  only  in  religion,  but  even  in 
natural  science,  this  great  man  believed  in  many  things 
which  have  been  despised  as  mere  superstitions  by  his  fol- 
lowers and  admirers  in  later  times.  It  is  not  easy  to  sup- 
pose that  he  was  influenced  in  regard  to  these  matters  by 
the  mere  faith  of  custom,  and  some  not  yet  overcome  attach- 
ment to  the  common  prejudices  of  his  day.  For  in  truth 
his  expressions  concerning  the  world  above  the  senses,  bear 
as  much  as  any  part  of  his  writings,  the  clear  impress  of  his 
penetrative  and  peculiar  spirit.  He  was  a  man  who  had  as 
much  feeling  as  invention,  and  although  the  world  of  expe- 
rience had  revealed  itself  to  him  in  altogether  a  new  light, 
the  higher  and  divine  region  of  the  spiritual  world,  which 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  BACON.  301 

is  situated  far  above  common  experience  and  sense,  was  not 
viewed  by  him  either  obscurely  or  remotely.     How  little 
he  himself  partook,  I  will  not  say  in  the  rude  materialism 
of  his  followers,  but  even  in  thai;  spiritual  deification  of  na- 
ture which  became  fashionable  in  France,  and,  though  in  a 
lesser  degree,  in  Germany,  during  the  eighteenth  c^itury, 
this  may  be  abundantly  proved  by  a  simple  maxim  which 
he  has  uttered  respecting  the  proper  essence  of  true  and  phi- 
losophical inquiry  in  physics.     In  the  natural  philosophy  of 
the  ancients,  says  he,  there  is  this  to  blame,  that  they  held 
nature  to  be  an  image  of  the  Godhead;  for,  according  to 
truth,  with  which  also  the  Christian  doctrine  has  no  vari- 
ance, man  alone  is  a  type  and  image  of  God,  while  nature 
is  no  glass,  likeness,  or  similitude  of  him,  but  only  the  work 
of  his  hands.     By  the  natural  philosophy  of  the  ancients,  it 
is  sufficiently  evident  from  the  extensive  form  of  Bacon's  ar- 
gument, that  he  here  meant  to  designate  not  any  one  parti- 
cular system ,  but  in  general  every  thing  most  good  and 
excellent  in  the  opinions  of  the  ancients   concerning   na- 
tural philosophy — a  term  under  which  it  is  besides  more 
than  probable  that  he  comprehended  not  physical  science 
alone,  but  mythology  and  natural  religion.     When  Bacon, 
according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures,  asserts  that  it  is 
the  privilege  of  man  alone  to  be  an  image  of  the  Deity,  we 
are  not  to  understand  that  he  had  ascribed  to  man  this  high 
and  peculiar  excellence,  merely  as  being  the  most  glorious 
and  complex  of  all  natural  productions;  he  took  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Bible  in  its  literal  sense,  and  believed  this  re- 
semblance and  image  to  be  the  gift  of  God's  love  and  inspi- 
ration.    In  the  figurative  expression,  that  nature  is  no  mir- 
ror or  image  &£  God,  but  only  the  work  of  his  hand,  there 
may  be  found,  if  we  understand  it  in  its  true  profoundness  of 
meaning,  a  perfect  statement  of  the  true  relation  between  the 
world  subject  and  the  world  superior  to  the  senses, — between 
God  and  nature.     It  expresses  that  nature  is  not  self-origin- 
ating or  self-existent,  but  a  production  of  the  divine  will  for 
a  particular  purpose.     We  may  obtain  from  this  short  and 
simple  maxim  respecting  the  natural  philosophy  of  the  an- 
cients, and  that  of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  and  of  Bacon,  a 
clear  and  intelligible  guide  to  point  out  the  right  path  be- 
tween the  dangers  of  impious  veneration  for  nature  on  the 

26 


302  BACON  AND  HUGO  GROTIUS. 

one  hand ;  and  on  the  other,  of  that  dark  aversion  for  nature, 
into  which  confined  and  partial  reason  too  often  falJs,  when, 
directing  itself  entirely  to  morality,  it  can  neither  understand 
external  nature,  nor  the  Deity  who  is  alike  predominant 
over  the  natural  and  the  moral  world.  The  proper  distinc- 
tion and  relation  between  nature  and  Deity,  is  the  leading 
principle  not  only  of  all  thought  and  belief,  but  of  human 
life  and  intercourse.  This  circumstance,  and  the  saying  of 
Bacon,  which  embraces  the  result  of  all  his  reflections  con- 
cerning nature,  are  the  more  worthy  of  our  attention,  be- 
cause, even  in  our  oami  time,  philosophy  is  still,  for  the  most 
part,  divided  between  these  two  extremes  ;  the  one  that  cul- 
pable deification  of  nature,  which  distinguishes  not  between 
the  Creator  and  his  works — God  and  the  world ;  the  other, 
the  hatred  and  blindness  of  those  despisers  of  nature,  whose 
reason  is  too  exclusively  egotistical  in  its  direction.  The 
right  middle-path  between  these  two  opposite  errors,  or  the 
true  recognition  of  nature,  finds  its  expression  in  the  feeling 
which  we  have  of  our  own  internal  connection  with  nature, 
as  well  as  of  our  superiority  over  it,  and  in  that  peculiar 
reverence  and  admiration  with  which  we  regard  all  those 
parts  of  nature  that  have  in  them  something  of  a  higher  and 
different  character — all  of  lovely  or  of  lawful,  which  reveals 
to  us,  in  a  more  striking  manner,  the  traces  of  a  fashioning 
hand  and  a  superintending  intellect. 

The  influence  exerted  during  the  seventeenth  and  a  great 
part  of  the  eighteenth  centuries  over  philosophy  and  uni- 
versal thought  by  Lord  Bacon,  was  not  more  considerable 
than  that  of  Hugo  Grotius  over  the  practical  and  political 
world,  and  the  general  ethics  of  international  intercourse. 
And  in  truth  this  influence  was  a  happy  and  wholesome 
one ;  for  as,  after  the  dissolution  of  that  religious  bond  which 
formerly  united  the  western  nations  in  one  political  system, 
the  universal  and  impious  statemanship  of  Machiavel  had 
always  been  becoming  more  and  more  the  favourite  rule  of 
conduct,  surely  no  greater  service  could  be  rendered  to  hu- 
manity, than  giving  to  self-destroying  Europe,  an  universal 
and  composing  law  for  all  her  nations — unhappily  so  much 
divided  in  faith,  so  much  inflamed  in  passions,  and  so  much 
corrupted  by  the  prevalence  of  a  doctrine  alike  abounding 
in  sophistry  and  vice.     Hugo  Grotius-  was  universally  ac- 


WRITINGS  OF  GROTIUS.  303 

knowledged  to  have  accomplished  this  noble  purpose.  It 
is  an  elevating  thought  that  a  mere  man  of  letters,  a  philo- 
sopher, having  no  power  except  that  of  his  own  intelligence 
and  eloquence,  should  have  been  the  unassisted  founder  of 
such  a  system  of  national  law ;  as  he  gained  by  his  exertions 
the  veneration  of  his  contemporaries,  so  he  is  no  less  enti- 
tled to  the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  posterity.  If  we  con- 
sider it  as  a  system,  the  national  law  founded  and  introduced 
by  Hugo  Grotius  and  his  foUow'ers  may  appear  indeed  ex- 
tremely defective,  and  be  sufficiently  open  to  the  cavils  of  a 
sceptic.  The  religious  bond  of  the  elder  political  union 
was  an  irremediable  loss.  In  the  absence  of  this  the  doc- 
trine of  right  was  now  to  be  founded  entirely  upon  the  in- 
nate and  necessary  ideas  of  men  respecting  their  own  soeial 
place  and  destination.  The  more  entirely  the  tmivsrsal! 
morality  was  grounded  by  Grotius  and  his  followers  on  na- 
ture and  reason,  and  conducted  according  to  the  capabilities 
of  these  imperfect  guides,  the  more  did  the  first  great  foun- 
tain of  all  morality  come  to  be  neglected ;  and  the  more  un- 
avoidably did  it  happen  that  both  the  theory  and  practice  of 
national  law  lost  themselves  in  a  multitude  of  useless,  and, 
in  part  at  least,  inextricable  difficulties  and  niceties,  on  the 
one  side  and  on  the  other,  in  a  set  of  conclusions  which  were 
no  less  dangerous  than  extravagant.  It  is  indeed  difficuk 
to  compute  how  much  evil,  both  in  opinion  and  in  aetioa, 
was  produced  by  the  doctrines  of  natural  right,  and  the 
statesmanship  of  reason,  in  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Yet  it  must  always  remain  a  great  benefit,  that 
through  the  doctrine  of  international  law,  extended  and  re- 
cognized by  means  of  Grotius,  a  mighty  bulwark  was  pla- 
ced before  the  encroaching  stream  of  corruption  for  at  least 
one  full  century.  From  1648  to  1740  there  is  no  doubt 
that  many  evident  and  great  outrages  against  international 
justice  were  committed,  but  they  were  all  exclaimed  against ; 
and  it  was  much  that  power  and  ambition  were  thus  sub- 
jected to  some  constraint,  and  compelled  to  observe  at  least 
the  appearance  of  rectitude.  Even  from  1740  to  1772  these 
beneficial  effects  were  still  displayed  :  and  although  certainly 
in  a  less  degree,  perhaps  even  in  the  more  stormy  and  tu- 
multuous period  which  succeeded.  Now,  indeed,  the  na- 
tions of  Europe  have  undergone  a  second  great  convulsioHj 


{ 


304  INFLUENCE  OF  GROTIUS. 

and  as  peoples  and  states  have  been  so  much  changed,  it  is 
no  wonder  that  the  old  rules  and  forms,  by  which  their  in- 
tercourse was  regulated,  should  have  passed  away. 

Of  all  the  writers  who  have  produced  a  great  and  univer- 
sal effect  on  the  practical  world,  and  the  political  relations 
of  Europe,  the  influence  of  Grotius  has  certainly  been  the 
most  salutary.  In  regard  to  the  importance  of  his  works, 
he  can  only  be  compared  with  Machiavel  before,  and  Rous- 
seau after  him. 

In  addition  to  his  labours  for  the  restoration  and  recogni- 
tion of  justice  and  its  theory,  the  active  intellect  of  Grotius 
was  also  exerted  in  the  attempt  to  set  forth  the  truth  of  reli- 
gion in  a  formal,  and,  so  to  speak,  in  a  rational  manner.  It 
was  one  of  the  indirect  effects  of  Protestanism  that  religion 
came  to  be  perpetually  looked  upon  as  a  subject  of  conten- 
tion, and  consequently  to  be  treated  as  a  matter  of  reason — ■ 
an  error  which  formed  besides  a  part  of  the  original  spirit 
and  system  of  the  second  great  leader  of  the  reformation, 
Calvin.  Grotius  has  had  many  followers  in  an  attempt  of 
which  the  audacity  seems  every  day  more  remarkable,  al- 
though there  can  be  no  reason  to  doubt  the  excellence  of 
his  motives.  In  itself  I  must  consider  it  as  a  sure  token  of 
declining  religion,  that  what  is  by  nature  a  matter  of  the 
most  internal  feeling  and  lively  faith,  should  be  embraced 
as  a  business  of  mere  reason,  and  considered  as  the  fit  sub- 
ject of  learned  controversy — that  the  truth  of  religion  should 
be  handled  like  a  process  of  civil  law,  or  what  is  still  worse, 
as  Pascal  would  have  desired  to  see  it,  like  the  solution  of  a 
regular  problem  in  geometry. 

I  cannot  bring  myself  to  look  upon  the  philosophical  la- 
bours of  Descartes  as  equally  important  with  those  of  these 
two  great  men ;  his  influence  upon  his  own  age,  and  the 
following  one,  was  rather  dangerous  and  productive  of  error, 
than  salutary  and  truly  vivifying.  In  general,  Descartes 
appears  to  me  a  perfect  proof  that  a  man  may  be,  at  least  as 
the  exact  sciences  have  as  yet  been  cultivated,  a  great  ma- 
thematician, (which  he  certainly  was  for  his  age,)  without 
being  on  that  account  the  more  successful  in  philosophy.  It 
is  true,  that  those  hypotheses,  from  which  Descartes  at- 
tempted to  explain  not  only  all  the  separate  facts  in  physics, 
but  even  the  origin  of  the  universe,  have  been  long  forgot- 


THE  SYSTEST  0^  DESCARTES:  3^00 

ten.  His  system  possessed  only  for  a  very  short  time  its 
supremacy,  and  was,  in  fact,  never  very  much  extended  out 
of  France.  Yet  his  strange  hypothesis  of  the  vortices  was- 
not  without  a  considerable  and  even  abiding  effect  upon  the 
spirit  of  the  seventeenth,  and  through  that  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Above  alf,  his  method,  as  he  calls  it,  or  the  mode 
in  which  he  began  to  philosophize,  has  found  many  imita- 
tors. It  was  the  great  object  of  his  desire  to  be  throughout 
an  original  thinker  in  the  strictest  and  most  perfect  sense  of 
the  word.  For  this  purpose  he  resolved  to  forget,  once  for 
all,  every  thing  he  had  before  known,  thought,  or  believed',, 
and  to  begin  entirely  anew.  Of  course  all  the  philosophers 
and  inquirers  of  preceding  ages  were  entirely  neglected,  and 
their  labours  overlooked  as  matters  unworthy  of  notice  by 
this  original  reflector.  Were  it  possible  at  pleasure  to  throw 
entirely  and  effectually  aside  the  thread  of  inherited  thought,, 
(by  which  we  are,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  inseparably  con- 
nected through  language,)  the  consequemres  of  this  could  be 
no  other  than  destruction.  The  case  would  be  exactly  as^ 
if  some  innovator  in  the  political  world  should  dream  him- 
self capable  of  stopping  the  great  wheel  of  public  life,  and' 
of  substituting  in  place  of  that  complicated  machinery, 
which  a  nation  has  formed  for  itself  in  the  progress  and^ 
struggle  of  ages,  some  simpler,  and,  as  he  thinks,  better  in- 
vention of  his  own  devising, — a  constitution  springing  fresh 
and  pure  from  his  own  unassisted  reason.  The  absurdity  of 
any  attempt  to  attain  either  philosophical  truth  or  political 
faultlessness  by  such  contempt  and  oblivion  of  the  past,  has 
been  demonstrated  by  many  unhappy  examples  in  the  his- 
tory both  of  nations  and  of  literature.  The  most  natural 
consequence  of  all  such  attempts  is,  that  the  inquirer  neither 
sees  nor  avoids  those  first  and  usual  errors  into  which  hu- 
man reason  is  most  apt  to  fall,  when  it  attempts  to  discover 
truth  entirely  by  its  own  power ;  errors  are  thus  needlessly 
revived,  and  even  held  up  as  great  discoveries,  which  have 
already  been  often  corrected  or  confuted.  As  for  the  total 
oblivion  of  all  that  has  gone  before  us,  that,  as  I  have  said 
above,  is  an  impossibility ;  so  impossible  is  it  to  erect  any 
fabric  of  perfect  and  independent  originality  in  philosophy, 
that  Descartes  is  by  no  means  the  only  one  of  these  self- 
satisfied   philosophers,   whose   most    boasted  and   original 

26* 


306  HIS  VAIN  ATTEMPT,  ETC 


opinions  turn  out,  after  all,  to  be  mere  new  versions  of  what 
had  been  often  said,  in  different  words,  by  their  predecessors. 
The  borrowing-  is  indeed  unintentional,  but  it  is  produced  by 
a  mixture  of  imperfect  self-deception,  and  obscured,  but  not 
extinguished,  reminiscence.  It  is  usually  supposed  to  have 
been  a  great  merit  of  Descartes,  that  he  drew  so  perfect  a 
line  between  spirit  and  matter.  It  must,  however,  appear  un- 
questionably somewhat  strange  and  surprising,  that  it  should 
have  been  looked  on  as  something  so  new  and  original  to 
make  a  distinction  between  intellect  and  body ;  but,  in  truth, 
the  mode  in  which  Descartes  made  his  distinction  was  so 
unsatisfactory  and  merely  mathematical,  that  no  good  re- 
sulted from  it,  and  the  whole  thoughts  of  those  who  adopted 
it  were  lost  in  inextricable  difficuhies,  in  the  attempt  to  ex- 
plain the  connection  between  soul  and  body,  and  their  mu- 
tual influences  upon  each  other.  Philosophy  continued, 
after  the  time  of  Descartes,  to  vacillate  between  the  principle 
of  personal  consciousness,  and  the  world  of  the  senses, — one 
set  of  inquirers  vainly  endeavouring  to  explain  every  thing 
on  the  former ;  and  another  still  more  absurdly,  to  deduce 
from  the  experience  of  the  latter  even  those  doctrines  of 
morality  and  theology  with  which  it  has  not  the  smallest 
connection.  In  every  case  the  true  relation  between  the  soul 
and  the  senses  remained  entirely  incomprehensible,  so  long 
as  men  had  lost  all  sight  of  that  higher  and  godlike  region 
upon  which  both  depend,  and  from  whose  light  both  must 
first  be  illuminated  and  explained.  We  often  hear  Descartes 
praised  for  the  mathematical  precision  with  which  he  has, 
from  reason  alone,  described  the  being  of  God.  If  this  be  a 
merit,  in  my  opinion,  it  does  not  belong  to  him :  it  was  an 
idea  borrowed  from  those  elder  philosophers  of  the  middle 
age,  who  were  treated  with  so  much  contempt  by  Descartes 
and  his  age.  It  is  true,  that  they  considered  the  matter  in  a 
point  of  view  quite  different  from  that  of  Descartes  and  the 
period  following  their  own.  To  the  highest  of  all  truths,  of 
which,  in  a  way  peculiar  to  itself,  we  have  also  the  most 
firm  and  fearless  knowledge,  and  which  forms,  in  fact,  the 
EUiimating  spirit  and  central  point  of  all  other  thoughts  and 
impressions,  even  of  all  the  active  purposes  and  views  of 
life, — to  this  truth  these  old  philosophers  attempted,  with 
modesty  and  perseverance,  to  add  the  additional  and  far  in- 


THE  DISCIPLES  OF  DESCARTES.  307 

ferior  arguments  of  reason.  As  every  creature,  or  being  in 
nature,  makes  known  involuntarily,  in  one  way  or  another, 
the  inscrutable  greatness  of  its  Creator,  so  may  also  the  hu- 
man reason,  otherwise  so  vain  of  itself,  and  its  own  powers, 
be  permitted  to  join  the  general  chorus  which  does  honour 
to  the  Deity.  As  in  human  affairs  it  is  always  looked  upon 
as  the  highest  triumph  of  a  good  and  right  cause,  when  even 
its  enemies  and  opponents  are  compelled  to  bear  unwilling 
witness  to  its  truth  and  excellence,  so  also  may  the  reason  of 
man  be  admitted  to  furnish  evidence  of  divine  truth.  But  if 
we  attempt,  after  the  manner  of  Descartes,  to  explain  exclu- 
sively or  chiefly  from  reason  the  being  of  God,  which  we 
must  learn  to  comprehend  from  the  suggestions  of  very  dif- 
ferent authority,  we  are,  in  fact,  degrading  God  to  a  depend- 
ence upon  reason,  or  at  least  to  a  companionship  and  equality 
with  it.  There  never  has  been,  nor  ever  can  be,  any  suc- 
cessful attempt,  after  men  have  lost  their  respect  for  that 
other  and  higher  authority,  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of 
God  to  those  who  neither  feel  nor  believe  it. 

The  followers  and  disciples  of  Descartes  founded  a  new 
sect  in  France,  which,  for  a  short  time,  maintained  its  su- 
premacy. Yet  there  were  not  a  few  who,  remaining  inde- 
pendent, and  even  preserving  their  religious  principles,  em- 
braced, nevertheless,  as  much  of  the  Cartesian  system  as  they 
imagined  they  could  reconcile  with  their  belief  This  was, 
in  many  respects,  the  case  Avith  Malebranche,  although  he 
indeed  was  never  able  completely  to  get  rid  of  those  difficul- 
ties which  Descartes  had  seen  concerning  the  connection  be- 
tween thought  and  its  external  objects,  between  spirit  and 
matter.  Huet  acquired  great  fame  as  an  opponent  of  Des- 
cartes, and  a  critical,  acute,  and  philosophical  defender  of 
revelation ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  Fenelon,  without  par- 
taking, in  any  degree,  of  the  peculiar  philosophical  and 
metaphysical  contentions  of  his  day,  wrote,  in  the  most  ex- 
quisite language,  from  no  inspiration  but  that  of  his  own 
amiable  and  Christian  feelings.  But  religion  owed  her  pre- 
servation much  more  to  another  distinguished  Frenchman, 
whose  name  I  have,  as  yet,  purposely  forborne  to  mention, — 
this  is  Bossuet,  a  writer  who,  so  far  as  eloquence  and  lan- 
guage are  concerned,  has  always  been  considered  as  one  of 
the  first  which  his  country  has  produced.     It  may,  indeed, 


308  THE   GENIUS  OF  BOSSUET. 

be  matter  of  some  doubt,  whether  the  splendour  of  such  elo- 
quence as  his  be  ahogether  an  appropriate  vehicle  for  the 
truths  of  religion,  Avhether  the  simplicity  of  our  faith  do  not 
better  accord  with  a  more  artless  and  unlaboured  style  of 
composition.  But  even  if  this  should  be  so  in  the  general, 
there  can  be  no  question,  that  at  that  particular  period,  as  in 
every  other  period  when  religion  is  a  matter  of  contest,  and 
truth  not  entirely  triumphant,  a  preacher,  such  as  he  was, 
possessed  at  once  of  the  clearest  and  most  comprehensive  un- 
derstanding, and  of  the  most  vigorous  eloquence,  must  have 
been  an  acquisition  of  the  highest  importance  to  the  cause  he 
had  undertaken  to  defend.  Besides,  we  must  recollect,  that 
the  eloquence  of  Bossuet  was  by  no  means  confined  to  sub- 
jects, strictly  speaking,  theological;  for  whatever  in  life  and 
in  morality,  in  church  and  state,  in  politics  and  history,  and 
in  general,  whatever  in  human  affairs  is  calculated  to  lead 
the  mind  to  serious  reflection,  was  always  regarded  by  this 
great  man  in  a  religious  point  of  view,  and'  considered  as  a 
fit  subject  of  the  eloquence  of  the  pulpit. 

If  it  may  be  permitted  to  compare  an  orator,  so  far  as  his 
language  and  composition  are  concerned,  with  poets,  I  think 
there  is  something  in  Bossuet  which  places  him  on  a  higher 
level  than  any  of  the  poets  which  were  his  contemporaries. 
The  perfection  of  style  is  enclosed  in  a  very  narrow  sphere, 
between  two  extremes,  that  of  the  lofty  and  sublime,  and  the 
merely  artificial ;  its  charm  consists  in  the  mingling  of  these 
two  elements.  There  is  nothing  more  rare  or  difficult  than 
to  preserve  this  medium.  On  the  one  side  there  are  many 
poets  who  are  both  great  and  sublime,  but  in  whom  there  is 
a  want  of  refinement,  perfection,  or,  in  general,  of  harmony. 
Others  in  their  anxiety  to  be  polished  lean  too  much  to  the 
side  of  effeminacy  and  delicacy ;  they  are  noble  and  elegant, 
but  not  great ;  they  want  the  strength  which  is  necessary  to 
constitute  the  sublime.  Voltaire  seems  to  have  been  well 
aware  of  this  from  the  mode  in  which  he  criticises  the  two 
great  tragedians,  his  predecessors,  whom  it  was  the  highest 
ambition  of  his  life  to  surpass.  It  was  no  difficult  matter 
for  him  to  detect,  in  Corneille,  individual  passages,  wherein 
the  language  appears  obsolete,  rude,  or  even  corrupt  and 
bombast.  But  it  seems  to  me,  that  he  had  a  higher  reve- 
rence for  the  genius  of  this  poet  than  for  that  of  his  rival^ 


RACINE  AND  BOSSUET  COMPARED.  309 

perhaps  as  bearing  some  resemblance  to  himself;  and  that 
he  hoped,  by  his  own  fire  and  energy  in  passion,  to  surpass 
Racine,  whom  he  held  to  be  deficient  in  power  and  elevation. 
But,  in  truth,  I  apprehend  that  his  opinion  of  Racine  was 
not,  upon  the  whole,  a  correct  one ;  if  we  look  only  to  the 
rhetoric  of  passion,  among  the  crowd  of  French  tragedies, 
which  have  made  that  the  chief  object  of  their  ambition, 
we  shall,  with  difficulty,  find  any  one  which  can  sustain 
a  comparison  with  the  Phedre.  The  Athalie  is  animated 
with  the  force  of  another  and  yet  higher  inspiration.  If  in 
many  of  his  other  plays,  as,  for  example,  in  Berenice^  the 
chief  excellence  appears  to  consist  in  a  harmonious  repose  of 
representation,  and  exquisite  delicacy  of  characterizing ;  this 
was  rendered  necessary  by  the  nature  of  the  fable.  Yet  this 
much  may  be  easily  conceded  to  Voltaire,  that  Racine  would 
have  been  a  greater  and  more  perfect  poet,  had  he  united  to 
the  harmonious  faultlessness  of  language  and  versification 
Avhich  he  possessed,  to  that  noble  and  graceful  style  which 
forms  his  peculiar  beauty,  here  and  there,  somewhat  more  of 
that  impetuous  sublimity  which  often  loses  a  great  part  of  its 
effect  on  account  of  the  profuseness  with  which  it  is  lavished 
among  the  scenes  of  Corneille.  So  far  as  language  and  re- 
presentation are  concerned,  and  so  far  as  an  orator  can  be 
classed  with  poets,  I  think  that  this  union  of  excellencies  was 
possessed  by  Bossuet.  With  the  strictest  purity  and  refine- 
ment, with  a  style,  the  noble  elegance  of  which  has  never 
been  surpassed,  he  is  master,  whenever  his  subject  requires 
it,  of  a  greatness  and  sublimity  which  he  never  suffers  to 
swell  into  the  bombast,  I  am  happy  to  agree  with  the  most 
severe  of  the  French  critics  in  the  judgment  which  they  have 
formed  respecting  the  high  excellence  of  this  man  and  his 
writings ;  and  the  more  so,  because  they  are  not  only  exam- 
ples of  perfect  style  and  expression,  but  also  rich  fountains 
of  the  most  sublime  and  salutary  truths. 

There  is  yet  another  point  in  which  the  excellence  of 
Bossuet  as  a  writer  and  orator,  even  above  the  great  poets 
of  his  age  and  nation,  is  sufficiently  conspicuous.  The 
French  literature  is,  in  many  essential  circumstances,  fash- 
ioned after  the  model  of  the  earlier  refined  nations  of  anti- 
quity ;  it  is  in  part  grounded  on  this  imitation,  in  the  same 
manner  that  the  Roman  literature  was  upon  the  imitation  of 


f 


310       FRENCH  AND  ROMAN   LITERATURE  COMPARED. 

the  Greek.  This  in  itself  is  no  reproach,  and,  in  a  certain 
degree,  indeed,  is  necessary  with  the  literature  of  every  na- 
tion whose  refinement  has  a  date  subsequent  to  that  of  others, 
and  more  particularly  whose  spirit,  like  that  of  the  Romans 
and  the  French,  has  been  more  directed  to  the  external  and 
practical  life,  than  to  the  internal  activity  of  intellect.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  class  the  literature  of  the  Romans,  in  re- 
gard to  inventiveness  of  spirit,  with  that  of  the  Greeks ;  but 
I  have  endeavoured  to  shew  how,  notwithstanding  its  great 
inferiority  in  poetry  and  philosophy,  the  Roman  feeling  and 
idea  of  Rome,  predominant  in  all  its  works  and  writers, 
have  been  sufficient  to  give  it  a  character  and  excellence  of 
its  own.  The  same  effect  was  produced  on  Bossuct  by  the 
religion  which  animated  him,  for  his  religion  was  no  mere 
faith  of  custom,  but  the  spirit  of  his  life,  and,  as  it  were,  a 
second  nature,  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  see  and  compre- 
hend more  clearly  all  the  mysteries  of  the  first.  For  this 
reason  it  is,  that  he  preserves  all  the  independence  of  an  ori- 
ginal writer,  and  is  the  equal  and  rival,  rather  than  the  fol- 
lower, of  those  ancients  who  were  both  his  models  in  style, 
and  the  fountains  of  his  learning  and  opinions.  What  the 
idea  of  their  country  and  of  the  greatness  of  Rome  was  to 
the  Romans,  and  what  this  idea  gave  to  them  even  as  writers, 
Christianity  was,  and  gave,  ia  a  much  higher  degree,  to 
Catholic  France,  during  the  period  when  the  spirit  of  Bos- 
suet  was  the  ruling  one.  Religion  was  the  free  part  of  the 
soul,  which  enabled  it  to  maintain  itself  unsubdued  by  the 
encroaching  influences  of  the  antique.  So  far,  however, 
was  this  from  being  commonly  the  case,  that  the  best  poet 
which  France  at  that  time  possessed,  who  was  also  the  most 
religious,  stopped  short  in  his  career,  before  he  had'  reached 
the  point  of  perfection  which  he  certainly  might  have  attain- 
ed, in  consequence  of  the  collision  which  took  place  between 
his  ideas  of  Christianity,  and  his  too  exclusively  antique  no- 
tions in  resrard  to  the  dramatic  art.  It  is  Avell  known  that 
Racine,  after  he  had  become  completely  penetrated  with  the 
opinions  of  the  Jansenists,  adopted  ideas  of  absurd  strictness 
respecting  his  own  art,  and  even  desisted  from  writing  for 
the  theatre.  This  excess  of  moral  scrupulousness  in  the 
great  poet,  cannot  fail  to  impress  us  with  an  amiable  notion 
of  the  man,  and  that  is  indeed  sufficiently  confirmed  by  all 


THE  WRITINGS  OF  PASCAL.  311 

that  we  know  of  his  private  history,  and  by  the  scope  and 
tenor  of  his  letters.  And  if  it  be  true  that  he  judged  too 
severely  of  the  capabilities  of  the  theatre,  it  is  unquestionably 
quite  as  true,  that  in  the  dramatic  art  and  representation  of 
his  time,  there  were  many  things  not  very  easily  reconcile- 
able  with  the  doctrines  and  morality  of  the  Bible.  There 
was  always  a  Avant  of  harmony  between  Christian  sentiments 
and  the  vehicle  in  which  they  were  conveyed.  Upon  the 
whole,  there  is  the  greatest  reason  to  regret  that  Racine  did 
not  finish  what  he  so  well  began  in  his  Athalie^  and  demon- 
strate the  possibility  of  making  the  drama  of  France  a  Chris- 
tian drama,  without  diminishing  its  excellence.  How  great 
in  these  respects  is  the  superiority  of  the  Spanish  poetry  over 
the  French !  Among  that  thoroughly  Catholic  people,  re- 
ligion and  fiction,  truth  and  poetry,  do  not  stand  at  variance 
from  each  other,  but  are  all  united  in  the  most  harmonious 
beauty. 

The  party  of  the  Jansenists  gave  to  France  many  distin- 
guished writers,  among  whom  I  need  only  mention  Pascal ; 
but,  upon  the  whole,  I  am  convinced  that  the  controversies 
which  they  introduced  had  any  efl^ect  rather  than  a  fortunate 
one  on  the  French  literature.  I  shall  only  recall  to  your 
recollection,  in  a  few  w^ords,  the  subject  of  most  of  their  con- 
tests. It  was  a  difficulty  as  old  as  human  reason,  and  which 
human  reason  never  can  thoroughly  explain, — the  nature  of 
the  free  will  of  man,  and  its  reconcilement  with  the  necessity 
of  nature — the  omniscience  and  omnipotence  of  the  Deity. 
This  is  a  matter  entirely  subject  to  reason,  and  which  of 
right,  therefore,  should  never  have  been  connected  with  re- 
ligion. The  judicious  friends  and  defenders  of  Christianity 
have  never  pronounced  any  opinion  respecting  it,  excepting 
only  a  negative  one,  to  express  their  dislike  of  the  two  equal- 
ly reprehensible  extremes.  But  as  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  cen- 
turies, when  the  doctrines  of  free  will,  and  the  power  of 
man's  own  exertions,  in  regard  to  his  virtue,  were  so  much 
brought  forward,  that  he  was  represented  as  a  being  inde- 
pendent of  God,  and  not  requiring  his  aid,  all  the  friends  of 
Christianity  were  obliged  to  bestir  themselves  in  order  to 
get  the  better  of  this  error ;  so  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries,  their  chief  object  was  to  combat  those  very 
opposite  dogmatists  who  maintained  that  man,  to  obtain  and 


312  THE  SOPHISTRY  OF  PASCAL. 

fulfil  all  the  purposes  of  his  being,  needs  only  to  lay  aside 
all  exertion  and  all  free  will, — who  adopted,  in  the  main,  the 
antique  notions  of  dark  and  inflexible  destiny,  or  at  least  the 
Mahometan  ones  of  predestination  and  fatality.  This  con- 
troversy was  in  itself  an  useless  one,  but  it  was  rendered  far 
more  hurtful  than  it  needed  to  have  been  by  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  conducted. 

The  Provincial  letters  of  Pascal  have,  in  consequence  of 
their  wit,  and  the  beauty  of  their  language,  become  standard 
works  in  French  literature ;  but  if  we  would  characterize 
them  by  their  import  and  spirit,  they  form  nothing  more 
than  a  masterpiece  of  sophistry.  He  disdains  none  of  the 
tricks  of  that  dangerous  art,  by  Avhich  he  thinks  he  can  ren- 
der his  opponents,  the  Jesuits,  contemptible  or  odious.  That 
violence  was  in  many  respects  done  to  truth,  those  acquaint- 
ed with  the  history  of  the  time  well  know,  but  even  although 
that  had  been  much  less  frequently  the  case  than  it  really 
was  with  Pascal,  every  one  must  admit  that  an  author,  such 
as  he  was,  employed  his  genius  in  a  very  culpable  manner, 
when  he  set  the  example  of  writing  concerning  religion  in 
the  tone  of  apparent  levity  and  bitter  sarcasm.  At  first,  in- 
deed, this  mode  was  adopted  by  one  Christian  against  others, 
men  whom  he  personally  hated,  although  they  were  serious- 
ly religious,  because  they  did  not  measure  the  truths  of 
Christianity  by  the  geometrical  standard  which  he  himself 
preferred.  But  how  soon  were  the  same  weapons  turned 
against  religion  itself  The  witty  and  exquisitely  expressed 
sophistry  of  Pascal,  was  an  admirable  but  a  dangerous 
model,  copied  with  but  too  much  success  by  Voltaire ;  and 
easily  coupled  by  him  with  all  the  kindred  artifices  of  Bayle 
— 2i  genius  of  the  highest  order,  who  applied  a  most  various 
erudition  in  order  to  throw  out  doubts,  insinuations,  mocker- 
ies, and  jests,  against  religion,  and  to  make  his  approaches 
on  every  side,  like  a  treacherous  underminer,  towards  the 
yet  unshattered  bulwarks  of  our  faith. 

In  general  the  spirit  of  philosophy  in  the  last  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  leaned  more  and  more  to  evil.  We 
may  learn  from  the  example  of  Hobbes  alone  how  much 
the  new  doctrines  of  Bacon,  without  any  intention  or  fault 
of  that  great  man  himself,  had  the  tendency  to  promote  un- 
belief and  materialism.     But  as  yet  the  spirit  of  the  time 


LOCKE,  BACONj  AND  HOBBES.  313 

was  not  ripe  enough  to  receive  the  doctrine  of  unlimited  right 
in  the  strongest,  as  expressed  in  the  Leviathan.  In  order  to 
have  preached  with  success  such  an  atheistical  view  both  of 
the  physical  and  political  world,  Hobbes  should  have  come 
a  century,  or  at  least  half  a  century  later.  Locke,  on  the 
other  hand,  received  much  greater  favour,  because  his  opin- 
ions were  not  so  much  at  variance  with  the  received  moral 
principles  and  feelings  of  his  time,  and  because  the  tendency 
of  his  book,  although  almost  as  greatly,  was  by  no  means  so 
apparently  irreligious.  In  truth  his  errors  were  the  more 
dangerous,  on  account  of  the  unsuspicious  shape  in  which 
they  made  their  appearance.  It  is  quite  evident  that  no 
higher  kind  of  belief  or  hope  can  obtain  a  place,  where 
every  thing  is  enclosed  within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  sen- 
ses, and  their  experience.  Locke  himself,  indeed,  was  a 
good  Christian  but  this  is  only  one  instance  more,  that  he 
who  first  opens  a  new  line  of  thought  very  seldom  pursues 
it  so  far  as  to  perceive  even  its  most  inevitable  consequences. 
If  we  adopt  his  principles,  we  must  inevitably  renounce  all 
other  thoughts,  and  limit  ourselves  to  the  feeling,  the  experi- 
ence, and  the  enjoyment  of  the  senses ;  and  those  who  in 
later  times  have  openly  professed  these  notions,  although 
they  called  themselves  independent  philosophers,  were  in 
truth  only  the  disciples  of  Mr.  Locke.  When  men  began 
to  reflect  somewhat  more  deeply  on  the  proper  subjects  of 
this  sensible  experience,  and  then  on  the  power  which  it 
possesses,  and  the  effects  which  it  produces,  a  mighty  variety 
of  doubts  sprung  up  in  every  direction,  particularly  in  Eng- 
land. The  doctrine,  that  the  only  true  knowledge  is  that 
shaped  out  by  the  senses  and  experience,  is  in  general  deci- 
ded, although  not  openly  expressed,  materialism,  and  in 
France  it  very  soon  threw  aside  the  veil,  such  as  it  was. 
Indirectly,  and  indeed  entirely  contrary  to  his  wishes,  New- 
ton himself  paved  the  way  for  the  philosophy  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century ;  for  the  defenders  of  the  new  opinions  were 
proud  of  appealing  perpetually  to  his  authority ;  and  thought, 
indeed,  that  after  his  stupendous  discoveries  in  physics,  noth- 
ing is  so  great  but  that  it  may  be  attained  without  the  assis- 
tance of  religion.  Both  Newton  and  Bacon  would  have 
turned  away  with  disgust  from  those  who  professed  to  be 
their  greatest  admirers  in  the  eighteenth  century.     These, 

27 


314  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  VOLTAIRE. 

indeed,  with  all  their  reverence  for  his  philosophy,  did  not 
scruple  to  talk  at  times  of  his  attachment  to  Christianity  as 
a  weakness  in  the  mind  of  Newton.  In  many  of  his  ex- 
pressions concerning  the  Deity  and  his  connection  with  na- 
ture, Ave  may  perceive  the  traces  not  merely  of  an  anima- 
ted feeling,  but  of  a  deep  sentiment,  marks  that,  though  he 
was  not,  in  strict  speaking,  a  philosopher,  and  knew  nothing 
of  metaphysics,  he  had  nevertheless  thought,  in  an  original 
manner,  on  all  the  highest  subjects  of  reflection. 

In  the  eighteenth  century,  the  English  were  the  first  peo- 
ple of  Europe,  in  literature  as  in  every  thing  else.  The 
whole  of  the  modern  French  philosophy  was  produced  by 
that  of  Bacon,  Locke,  and  other  Englishmen ;  at  least,  it 
borrowed  all  its  first  principles  from  them.  In  France, 
however,  it  soon  assumed  an  appearance  quite  different 
from  what  it  had  ever  had  in  England.  In  Germany,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  mighty  regeneration  of  literature  in  the 
middle  of  this  century,  received  its  first  impetus  and  ruling 
direction  principally  from  the  poetry  and  the  criticism  of  the 
English. 

Voltaire  was  the  first  who  contributed,  in  a  great  degree, 
to  bring  the  philosophy  of  Locke  and  Newton  into  France. 
It  is  singular  with  what  a  perversity  of  genius  this  man 
makes  use  of  all  the  marvellous  greatness  of  nature  as  re- 
vealed to  him  by  the  science  of  England,  not  for  the  purpose 
of  exalting  the  character  of  the  Creator,  but  for  lowering 
that  of  men ;  how  fond  he  is  of  dwelling  on  the  insignifi- 
cance of  this  earthworm,  amidst  the  immeasureable  splen- 
dours of  stars  and  planets.  As  if  the  spirit,  the  thought 
which  can  comprehend  all  this  universe  of  suns  and  stars, 
were  not  something  greater  than  they;  as  if  God  were  some 
earthly  monarch,  who,  among  the  millions  over  which  he 
rules,  may  well  be  supposed  never  to  have  seen,  and  almost 
to  have  forgotten  the  existence  of  some  paltry  village  on  the 
border  of  his  dominions.  The  eighteenth  century  in  gen- 
eral made  no  use  of  the  physical  knowledge  it  inherited  from 
the  seventeenth,  except  one  extremely  hostile  to  the  higher 
truths  of  religion.  In  Voltaire,  indeed,  there  is  no  such 
thing  to  be  found  as  any  regular  system  of  infidelity,  scarce- 
ly even  a  single  firm  principle,  or  settled  philosophical  opin- 
ion, or  even  precise  form  of  philosophical  doubt.     As  the 


EVILS  OF  THE  NEW  FRENCH  PHILOSOPHY.  315 

sophists  of  antiquity  took  a  pleasure  in  shewing-  the  versatil- 
ity and  ingenuity  of  their  spirit,  by  defending  first  one  opin- 
ion and  then  the  one  exactly  opposite  to  it,  so  Voltaire  wrote 
one  book  in  favour  and  another  in  contradiction  of  Provi- 
dence. Yet  in  so  far  is  he  sincere,  that  he  cannot  help  let- 
ting us  see  very  plainly  which  of  these  works  is  his  own 
favourite.  Throughout  all  his  writings,  whatever  be  their 
subject,  he  cannot  resist  any  opportunity  of  introducing  his 
impious  wit,  and  shelving  his  aversion  for  Christianity,  and, 
in  part  at  least,  for  all  religion.  In  this  point  of  view  his 
spirit  operated  as  a  corrosive  and  destructive  engine  for  the 
dissolving  of  all  earnest,  moral,  and  religious  modes  of  think- 
ing. Yet  it  appears  to  me  that  Voltaire  has  done  even  more 
harm  by  the  spirit  and  purpose  which  he  has  thrown  over 
history,  than  by  his  derision  of  religion.  He  felt  what  was 
the  defect  of  French  literature  in  this  department,  as  well  as 
in  that  of  poetry.  Since  the  time  of  the  Cardinal  Retz,  the 
abundance  of  historical  memoirs,  alike  interesting  from  their 
subjects  and  the  lively  mode  of  their  composition,  had  in- 
creased to  such  a  degree,  that  they  might  almost  be  said  to 
be  a  proper  literature  by  themselves — and  certainly  to  form 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  parts  of  the  whole  literature  of 
France.  But  in  consequence  of  these  memoirs,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  history  declined  too  much  into  the  tone  of  con- 
versation, became  split  into  particulars,  and  lost  itself  at  last, 
to  the  great  injury  of  historical  truth,  in  an  endless  variety 
of  anecdotes.  However  delightful  the  perusal  of  such  works 
may  be,  they  are,  after  all,  only  the  harbingers  and  materials 
of  history,  not  histories,  in  the  proper  acceptation  of  the 
word.  At  least  there  is  much  space  intervening  between 
the  best  possible  style  of  writing  such  anecdotes,  and  a  style 
of  historical  composition  such  as  that  of  the  ancients  was, 
or  among  the  modems,  that  of  Machiavelli. 

The  French  literature  possesses  many  excellent  narra- 
tives, some  well  collected,  and  (even  as  pieces  of  writing) 
praiseworthy  tracts,  concerning  the  older  history  of  the  coun- 
try, but  no  truly  classical,  national,  and  original  work  of 
history.  Voltaire  was  very  sensible  of  this  defect  in  the  li- 
terature of  his  nation,  and  with  his  usual  vanity  of  universal 
genius,  attempted  to  supply  it  himself  That  in  regard  to 
art  he  was  not  entirely  successful,  that  as  a  writer  of  history, 


316    Voltaire's  influence  on  English  writers. 

even  in  respect  to  the  mode  of  composition  adapted  for  works 
of  that  kind,  he  can  sustain  no  comparison,  I  do  not  say  with 
the  ancients,  but  even  with  the  best  English  historians — 
Hume  and  Robertson ;  this  is  now  universally  admitted  even 
in  France  itself  Nevertheless,  the  spirit  in  which  he  view- 
ed history,  very  soon  acquired  very  great  influence  even 
over  English  writers — particularly  Gibbon — and  became 
almost  the  ruling  historical  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  contury. 
The  essence  of  this  mode  of  thinking  in  respect  to  history 
which  proceeded  from  Voltaire,  consists  in  expressing,  on 
every  opportunity,  and  in  every  possible  form,  hatred  for 
monks,  clergjonen,  Christianity,  and,  in  general,  for  all 
religion.  In  regard  to  politics,  its  prevalent  spirit  is  a  par- 
tial, and,  in  the  situation  of  modern  Europe,  an  absurd  pre- 
dilection for  the  republican  notions  of  antiquity,  accompanied 
very  frequently  with  an  altogether  false  conception,  or  at 
least  extremely  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  true  spirit  and 
essence  of  republicanism.  Among  the  followers  of  Voltaire 
this  went  so  far  as  to  take  the  appearance  of  a  decided  and 
bigoted  hatred  of  all  kingly  power  and  nobility,  and  in  ge- 
neral of  all  those  modes  of  life  and  government  which  have 
been  produced  by  what  is  called  the  feudal  system  ;  and  all 
this,  in  spite  of  Montesquieu,  who  characterized  and  praised, 
with  the  acuteness  and  liberality  of  a  true  philosopher,  what 
these  comparatively  ignorant  writers  were  only  capable  of 
reviling.  How  much  was  set  in  a  false  light,  how  greatly 
historical  truth  was  injured,  and  the  whole  of  the  past  un- 
worthily condemned,  begins  now  to  be  discovered,  since  his- 
torical inquirers  have  adopted  a  more  profound  and  accurate 
method  of  research.  For  after  the  philosophy  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  had  entirely  accomplished  its  own  destruction, 
and  the  religion  which  it  would  have  overthrown  had  come 
victorious  out  of  the  struggle,  every  thing  in  history,  and  in 
the  past  has  begun  to  be  seen  in  a  more  just  and  natural 
point  of  view.  Yet  there  remain  many  falsifications,  errors, 
and  prejudices,  with  regard  to  past  ages,  which  have  still 
to  be  amended ;  for  in  no  department  did  the  philosophy  of 
the  last  century  so  deeply  and  so  extensively  establish  its  in- 
fluence as  in  history,  where  its  wickedness  and  falseness  are, 
af  course,  less  observeable  to  those  who  take  facts  upon  trust, 


VCLTAIRe's  opinions  of  the  FRENCH.  317 

than  when  their  spirit  is  brought  distinctly  forward  in  the 
shape  of  philosophical  doctrine  and  opinion. 

In  regard  to  Vohaire,  I  must  observe  that  he  seems  to 
have  been  actuated  by  motives  of  a  personal  nature,  which 
render  the  spirit  of  his  histories  still  more  narrow  and  un- 
just. It  is  evidently  his  purpose  to  make  us  believe  that  all 
the  ages  before  that  of  Lewis  XIV.  were  ages  of  darkness, 
and  that  even  then,  all  nations  except  his  were  mere  hordes 
of  barbarians.  This  much  exalted  monarch  plays  this  im- 
portant part  in  this  historical  and  intellectual  drama  of  Vol- 
taire, because  he,  it  seems,  while  the  whole  earth  was  wrap- 
ped in  chaos  and  barbarism,  was  the  first  who  pronounced 
a  creative  fiat  lux.  Yet  the  great  writers  of  the  time  of 
Lewis,  and  even  NeAvton  and  Locke,  were,  after  all,  only 
the  first  faint  rays  of  the  coming  splendour.  The  mid-day 
sun  of  entire  illumination  and  freethinking  did  not,  according 
to  Voltaire's  opinion,  manifest  himself  till  somewhat  later. 
But  however  inclined  he  was  in  general  to  flatter  the  foolish 
vanity  of  his  nation,  yet,  in  many  moments  of  mirth  or  dis- 
pleasure, he  spoke  either  from  levity  or  bitterness,  in  a  very 
different  tone,  as,  for  example,  in  that  well  known  saying 
of  his,  that  "  the  character  of  a  Frenchman  is  made  up  of 
the  tiger  and  the  ape."  In  other  more  moderate  but  not 
less  caustic  expressions,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  thoroughly 
Voltaire  had  studied  and  comprehended  his  countrymen. 
But  this  was  a  piece  of  knowledge  that  he  never  displayed 
except  by  accident. 

Even  Montesquieu  contributed  towards  the  formation  of 
this  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  principally  as  I 
apprehend,  because  he  neglected  to  give  any  rule  or  stan- 
dard of  unity  to  that  immense  collection  of  admirable  politi- 
cal remarks  and  opinions  which  he  laid  before  the  world. 
This  was  exactly  in  compliance  with  what  was  then  the 
usual  fashion  in  every  department  of  thought  and  action. 
The  erudition,  the  genius  and  powerful  reflections  of  this 
great  and  remarkable  writer,  contributed  only  to  increase 
the  general  relaxation  of  all  principle ;  for  the  spirit  of  the 
age,  being  furnished  with  no  guiding  rule,  floated  hither  and 
thither  amidst  that  vast  sea  of  political  facts  and  precepts, 
like  a  ship  without  anchor  or  compass,  upon  the  waves  of 
the  ocean. 

27* 


318  CHARACTER  OF  BUFFON  AND  OTHERS. 

The  tendency  to  sublime  and  elevating  thoughts,  even  to 
religious  feeling  and  views,  is  so  strong  in  our  nature,  and 
occasions  to  call  these  forth  are  so  profusely  scattered  over 
the  world  around  us,  that  we  cannot  be  at  all  surprised  to 
find  that  many  of  the  great  French  naturalists  remained  en- 
tirely, or  at  least  in  a  great  measure,  free  from  the  prevalent 
spirit  of  irreligion,  and  have  even  here  and  there  risen  to  a 
style  of  reflection  much  higher  than  that  of  their  age.  Al- 
though many  of  his  opinions  do  not  harmonize  with  revealed 
religion,  and  many  others  cannot  stand  the  test  of  philosophy, 
— although  he  himself  was  by  no  means  free  from  the  ma- 
terial fetters  of  the  entirely  physical  system  of  philosophy 
which  was  then  in  fashion ;  yet  I  can  never  help  consider- 
ing the  great  Buffon  as  one  who  is  entitled  to  be  classed,  at 
least  in  the  way  of  comparison,  with  the  better  thinkers  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  Among  the  latter  authors,  I  may 
just  allude  to  the  zealous  and  intellectual  Bonnet. 

The  social  manners  and  constitution  of  modern  Europe, 
and  more  particularly  of  France,  had  become,  in  very  many 
respects,  so  remote  from  nature,  that  we  can  scarcely  won- 
der that  a  restless  and  inquiring  spirit  should  have  gone  en- 
tirely to  the  opposite  extreme.  But  how  little  fitted  admira- 
tion and  respect  for  nature  alone  are  to  supply  human  life 
with  a  proper  rule  of  conduct,  the  example  of  Rousseau  af- 
fords a  sufficient  proof  In  regard  to  the  feeling  and  zeal 
which  animated  him,  Rousseau,  as  a  reasoner,  is  not  only 
superior  to  Voltaire,  and  all  other  French  philosophers  of 
the  last  century,  but  of  a  class  entirely  different  from  them. 
The  influence  which  he  exerted  over  his  age  and  nation 
was  perhaps  only  on  that  account  the  more  hurtful.  It  is 
only  when  a  strong  mind,  striving  passionately  in  quest  of 
truth,  pursues  its  researches  in  a  wrong  direction,  and  em- 
braces error  in  room  of  it,  that  error  assumes  a  form 
of  real  danger,  and  becomes  capable  of  seizing  possession 
of  generous  natures,  whose  general  principles  are  in  an 
unsettled  state.  The  wit  of  Voltaire  contributed  very  much 
to  unsettle  and  relax  principle,  and  thereby  paved  the  way 
for  Rousseau.  But  this  man's  impetuous  and  overwhelm- 
ing eloquence  drew  into  the  whirlpool  of  error  many  whom 
the  mere  sophistry  of  wit  and  pleasantry  could  never  have 
led  astray.     It  is  true  that  at  first  Rousseau's  pictures  of  sa- 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  PURE  ETHICS.  319 

vage  life,  and  his  theory  of  a  pure  democracy  of  reason, 
gave  rise  to  more  wonder  than  conviction.  But  as  it  was 
this  man's  fortune  to  become  the  founder  of  a  new  system 
and  method  of  education,  wherein  the  developement  of  the 
individual  man  is  supposed  to  be  best  conducted  upon  the 
isolated  principle  of  seclusion,  and  entirely  without  regard 
to  his  situation  as  a  citizen,  we  need  not  be  astonished  to 
find  that  at  a  somewhat  later  period  even  the  wildest  of  his 
dreams  about  natural  politics  found  both  admirers  and  de- 
fenders. After  having  seen  that  the  extension  of  physical 
science  contributed  very  much,  in  its  misapplied  condition, 
to  immorality,  ir religion,  and  even  atheism,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  a  direction  equally  culpable  and  dangerous  was  given 
by  the  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  improv- 
ed knowledge  of  men  and  nations.  But  however  much 
men  might  refine  and  adorn  their  descriptions  of  American 
savages,  in  order  to  promote  the  idea  of  the  possibility  of 
natural  perfection,  there  remained  always  a  few  points  in 
the  testimony  of  every  traveller  which  presented  insurmount- 
able difficulties  to  the  admirers  of  barbarity.  In  Voltaire, 
on  the  other  hand,  and  in  many  other  French  writers  of  his 
time,  we  may  observe  an  equally  absurd  predilection,  an- 
other extreme — ^one  as  far  removed  as  can  well  be  from  the 
wild  freedom  of  savages.  I  mean  a  passion  for  the  Chinese, 
a  people  polished  into  perfect  tameness  and  uniformity,  and 
exhibiting  the  best  specimen  of  what  has  since  been  called 
"  the  Despotism  of  Reason."  An  age  which  was  perpe- 
tually endeavouring  to  substitute  a  complete  system  of  police 
in  the  room  of  the  antiquated  influences  of  religion  and  mo- 
rality, which  regarded  the  perfection  of  a  few  manufactures 
as  the  sole  and  highest  object  of  human  society,  and  what 
they  called  "  the  doctrine  of  pure  ethics,"  as  the  ne  'plus  ul- 
tra of  illumination — an  age  such  as  this  could  scarcely 
indeed  fail  to  contemplate,  with  mighty  admiration,  the 
spectacle  of  a  nation  which  has,  according  to  its  own  ac- 
count, possessed  for  some  thousand  years  laws  without  reli- 
gion, which  has  had  newspapers  some  centuries  longer  than 
ourselves,  which  can  imprint  upon  porcelain  colours  more 
brilliant  than  Ave  are  acquainted  with,  and  make  paper  thin- 
ner and  finer  than  any  European  manufactory.  It  is  lamenta- 
ble to  see  into  what  contemptible  perversities  the  misdirected 


320  THE  DOGMAS  OF  HELVETIUS. 

ingenuity  of  a  few  rational  men  can  conduct  both  themselves 
and  their  contemporaries. 

Voltaire  and  Rousseau  were  the  first  who  gave  its  form 
and  shape  to  the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  but  they 
had  many  coadjutors  in  their  attempts,  many  who  were  in- 
defatigable in  rendering  the  moral  philosophy  of  Locke 
more  decided  in  its  principles  as  well  as  bolder  in  its  conse- 
quences, and  in  rendering  it,  so  improved,  the  manual  of 
the  age.  What  results  this  produced  in  regard  to  human 
life,  may  be  learned  from  the  single  example  of  Helvetius. 
This  man  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  readers,  that  self- 
ishness, vanity,  and  sensual  enjoyment  are  the  true  and  cer- 
tain guides,  the  only  rational  ends  of  enlightened  men,  the 
only  realities  in  human  life — and  his  readers  soon  began  to 
suspect  that  the  same  principles  ought  to  be  extended  to  the 
whole  universe.  Mind,  according  to  this  doctrine,  there  is 
none,  for  matter  is  every  thing,  and  man  is  distinguished 
from  the  brutes  not  by  intellect,  but  by  hands  and  fingers — 
advantages  Avhich,  in  some  degree  at  least,  he  appears  to 
share  with  the  monkey.  The  difference  between  the  man 
and  the  monkey  was  indeed  diminished  very  much  in  the 
opinion  of  many  philosophers  of  this  time,  ana  it  was  a  very 
favourite  speculation  to  discover  the  existence  of  interme- 
diate and  connecting  species  between  them.  It  is  much  to 
be  regretted  that  Rousseau  did  not  fulfil  the  intention  he 
once  expressed  of  openly  combating  the  dogmas  of  Helve- 
tius. He  must  in  the  course  of  such  a  controversy,  have  at 
least  been  compelled  to  settle  and  explain  somewhat  more 
fully  his  owij  principles,  and  these,  however  erroneous,  pos- 
sess, when  compared  with  those  of  the  other,  much  that  is 
both  good  and  noble,  and  capable  of  being  improved. 

The  last  step  in  the  progress  of  the  French  ante-revolu- 
tionary philosophy,  is  that  marked  by  the  congenial  spirit 
of  Diderot.  I  may,  without  question,  assume  the  fact,  that 
this  man  was  the  centrepoint  and  animating  principle,  not 
only  of  the  Encylojxzdia^  but  also  of  the  Systeme  de  la  Na- 
ture^ and  of  many  other  works  connected  in  the  same  spirit 
of  audacious  atheism.  He  wrought  indeed  much  more  in 
secret  than  in  public ;  he  was  different  from  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau  in  this,  that  he  had  less  vanity  of  authorship  than 
they,  and  was  perfectly  satisfied  when  he  could  gain  the  vie- 


THE  WORKS  OF  DIDEROT.  321 

tory,  without  wishing  to  be  personally  held  up  as  the  victor. 
He  was  peculiarly  distinguished  by  a  most  fanatical  hatred, 
not  only  of  all  Christianity,  but  of  all  kinds  of  religion.  He 
maintained  that  these  are  all  alike  founded  in  the  superstitious 
terrors  left  on  the  minds  of  a  half  destroyed  race,  by  those 
terrible  revolutions  in  the  natural  world,  the  traces  of  which 
are  still  so  apparent  around  us.  In  many  of  the  w^ritings  of 
this  school,  even  the  name  of  Atheism  is  not  concealed,  but 
it  is  openly  stated  that  man  can  never  be  happy  till  he  learns 
to  throw  aside  the  whole  doctrine  of  a  Deity — an  opinion, 
the  absurdity  of  which  has  been  but  too  fatally  demonstrated 
by  the  experience  of  a  few  subsequent  years.  Of  all  the 
forms  in  which  this  atheistical  system  was  brought  before 
the  world,  perhaps  the  most  singularly  extravagant  was  the 
theory  which  represented  Christ  as  a  mere  astronomical 
symbol — a  being  never  possessed  of  historical  existence — 
and  the  twelve  apostles  as  so  many  old  signs  of  the  zodiac. 
The  whole  spirit  of  this  system,  and  the  whole  of  the  prac- 
tical purposes  which  it  was  intended  to  serve,  may  be  learned 
from  the  single  well  knowTi  wish,  of  which  the  fathers  of 
the  revolution  made  no  secret — "  that  the  last  king  might  be 
burned  on  a  funeral  pile,  composed  of  the  body  of  the  last 
priest." 


LECTURE  XIV. 


LIGHTER  SPECIES  OF  WRITING  IN  FRANCE,  AND  IMITATION  OF  THE  ENG- 
IISH FASHIONABLE  LITERATURE  OF  BOTH  COUNTRIES MODERN  RO- 
MANCE— THE    PROSE    OF    BUFFON    AND    ROUSSEAU POPULAR    POETRY  IN 

ENGLAND MODERN     ITALIAN     THEATRE CRITICISM     AND     HISTORICAL 

COMPOSITION  OF  THE  ENGLISH SCEPTICAL   PHILOSOPHY RETURN  TO  A 

BETTER  AND  HIGHER  SPECIES  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  FRANCE — BONALD  AND 
ST.  MARTIN — SIR  WILLIAM  JONES  AND  BURKE. 


From  the  time  of  Lewis  XIV.  the  French  lanofuaofe  has 
always  possessed  great  weahh  in  all  these  lighter  species  of 
writing,  whose  inspiration  consists  of  imagination  and  wit. 
Yet  even  in  this  respect  the  elder  times  were  the  more  fortu- 
nate. No  later  writer  of  comedies  has  come  near  to  Mö- 
llere; the  peculiar  charm  of  La  Fontaine,  in  his  artless 
species  of  poetical  narration,  remains  inimitable.  Voltaire, 
who  in  his  opinions  and  philosophy  belongs  so  entirely  to 
the  later  time,  and  was  even  the  founder  of  its  principles, 
so  far  as  literature  and  poetry  are  concerned,  is  one  of  the 
elder  school,  and  so  forms  a  sort  of  point  of  connection  be- 
tween it  and  the  new.  His  success  in  comedy  was  far  less 
than  in  tragedy ;  but  he  is  quite  unrivalled  in  his  variety  of 
miscellaneous,  witty,  and  occasional  poems  of  every  kind. 
The  minor  poems  and  songs  of  the  French  had  always  this 
tendency  to  social  wit  and  fashion,  while  those  of  the  Eng- 
lish, on  the  other  hand,  partook  more  of  the  true  nature  of 
lyrical  poetry,  and  were  distinguished  by  their  depth  of 
thought  and  their  tone  of  natural  feeling  in  description.  The 
more  poetry  attaches  itself  to  the  present,  and  the  life  of  so- 
ciety, the  more  local  does  it  become,  and  subject  to  the  in- 
fluences of  fashion.  Many  comedies,  romances,  and  songs, 
produced  in  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  or  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  which  are  in  themselves  full  of  talent, 
and  were  in  their  day  very  celebrated  in  France,  have  since 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  FRENCH  STYLE.  323 

become  as  obsolete  as  the  manners  and  opinions  of  the  so- 
ciety which  they  represent.  Should  the  poetry  of  any  nation 
confine  itself  entirely  to  these  species,  and  to  subjects  exclu- 
sively modern — to  dramatic  pictures  of  manners  without  fable 
— to  tales  taken  from  the  life  of  ordinary  society — and  witty 
occasional  poems — it  would  be  almost  as  impossible  and  ab- 
surd to  attempt  a  historical  or  critical  account  of  it,  as  to 
make  a  display  of  anatomical  skill  upon  the  ephemerides  of 
a  summer  evening.  The  object  of  these  productions  is  no- 
thing more  than  to  fill  up  the  idle  hours  of  fashionable  life 
and  amusement ;  and  even  although,  in  order  to  fulfil  this 
purpose,  they  may  at  times  make  use  of  feeling,  passion,  and 
original  thoughts,  their  end  still  continues  to  be  pastime — a 
thing  which  may  be  attained  quite  as  well  without  poetry 
as  with  it. 

It  is  true,  without  doubt,  that  in  the  miscellaneous  and 
trifling  species  of  poetry,  there  are  to  be  found  productions 
w^hich  bear  as  decidedly  the  stamp  of  genius  as  the  first 
works  of  the  epic  poet  or  the  tragedian.  The  beauty,  how- 
ever, is  seldom  so  universal.  It  depends  very  often  entirely 
upon  expression,  and  its  delicacies,  things  which  can  be  more 
easily  felt  than  explained.  A  heroic  poem  or  a  tragedy  can 
be  very  well  comprehended  although  translated  into  a  differ- 
ent language,  and  in  general  the  greater  its  intrinsic  excel- 
lence is,  the  less  does  it  suffer  by  such  a  transmutation.  But 
I  doubt  whether  any  foreigner,  however  complete  may  be 
his  familiarity  with  the  French  language,  can  ever  sympa- 
thize in  its  utmost  extent  with  the  admiration  which  French- 
men express  for  La  Fontaine.  Naivete,  elegance,  and  the 
stamp  of  genius,  these  every  one  must  recognize  in  him ;  but 
a  Frenchman  feels  and  enjoys  something  still  more  exquisite 
than  these,  and  this  depends  on  the  language,  to  an  entire 
feeling  of  whose  numberless  peculiarities  no  foreigner  ever 
can  attain.  Many  even  of  the  most  celebrated  characteristic 
pieces  of  Moliere  are  now  become  too  antiquated  for  the 
stage  and  actual  representation,  and  can  be  admired  only  in 
reading.  However  high  we  may  be  inclined  to  place  these 
as  individual  works  and  in  the  scale  of  French  poetry,  their 
effects,  as  the  beginning  of  a  new  species  of  writing,  and  as 
models  for  future  artists,  have  been  very  far  from  fortunate. 
The  characters  of  Labruyere  or  Theophrastus  may  be  set 


324  ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  WRITING. 

forth  in  a  dramatic  form,  but  they  can  never  become  poetry. 
Even  the  rhetoric  of  the  passions,  when  it  forms  the  sole  ani- 
mation of  the  tragedy,  is  far  from  coming-  up  to  our  ideas  of 
what  tragedy  ought  to  be ;  in  like  manner,  the  psychologi- 
cal wire-drawing  of  characters  and  passions  in  comedy  fur- 
nishes a  very  unequal  substitute  for  poetry  and  wit.  The 
tendency  to  this  extreme  minuteness  of  characterization  has 
frequently  formed  a  subject  of  reproach  against  the  higher 
French  comedy  of  the  eighteenth  century.  From  it  the 
change  was  by  no  means  a  difficult  one  to  those  ethical 
treatises  in  the  shape  of  comedies,  of  which,  unfortunately 
for  his  own  nation,  and  still  more  so  for  ours,  Diderot  was 
the  inventor. 

The  original  French  character  is,  I  believe,  quite  as  light 
and  careless  as  it  is  usually  represented;  but  among  the 
French  books  of  the  eighteenth  century,  I  confess,  I  can  per- 
ceive very  few  traces  of  this,  even  in  those  situations  where 
it  might  have  appeared  with  the  greatest  propriety.  This 
must  be  ascribed  to  the  ever  increasing  spirit  of  philosophical 
and  political  sectarianism ;  and  even  from  the  external  his- 
tory of  the  period,  it  is  quite  easy  to  see  why  a  passionate 
species  of  rhetoric  came  to  acquire  a  complete  predominance 
over  the  old  trivial  spirit  of  the  French.  The  truth  is,  that 
the  nation  itself  had  undergone  as  great  a  change  as  its  lite- 
rature. The  ruling  philosophy  of  morals  was  indeed  ex- 
pressed by  some  poets  in  light  and  humorous  strains ;  but  it 
carried  most  by  much  too  far,  and  quite  beyond  all  the  limits 
of  poetry.  Materialism  is  essentially  inimical  to  poetry  and 
deadening  to  fancy.  The  magic  of  the  muse  must  lose  all 
its  power  over  one  who  is  thoroughly  penetrated  with  the 
degrading  doctrines  of  Helvetius. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  passion  for  freedom,  and  the  ado- 
ration of  nature,  which,  chiefly  by  means  of  the  followers  of 
Rousseau,  became  predominant  in  the  new  philosophy,  were 
not  easily  to  be  reconciled  with  the  formal  accuracy  of  the 
elder  French  poetry  in  the  seventeenth  century.  From  this 
circumstance  there  arose  an  internal  conflict,  and  enduring, 
struggle,  to  get  rid  of  the  ancient  authority,  and  this  broke 
out  in  an  open  rebellion  of  taste,  and  produced  an  entire, 
although  perhaps  only  a  transitory,  anarchy  in  literature, 
even  before  the  period  of  the  political  revolution :  hence  the 


rOLTAIREj  ROUSSEAU,  AND  DIDEROT.  325 

predilection  for  the  poetry  of  England.  Even  Voltaire  had 
made  much  use  of  it  in  particular  instances,  not  only  without 
acknowledgment,  but  in  the  midst  of  perpetual  sarcasms 
against  Milton  and  Shakespeare.  In  all  the  French  efforts 
in  the  higher  walks  of  poetry,  this  influence  of  the  English 
is  even  in  our  own  times  sufficiently  apparent.  The  desire 
to  give  tragedy  a  greater  freedom  of  construction  and  more 
of  historical  import,  without  however  «itirely  laying  aside 
the  old  system,  is  still  undiminished,  although  it  has  never 
as  yet  produced  any  very  considerable  results.  The  last 
Avorks  of  elevated  poetry  which  have  acquired  a  classical 
reputation  in  France,  are  descriptive  poems  of  the  species 
peculiar  to  England.  But  of  all  species  of  waiting,  none 
was  so  much  the  favourite  of  the  literati  of  the  new  school  as 
the  romance ;  for  whatever  fetters  might  have  been  imposed 
on  all  the  regular  forms  of  poetical  composition,  this  at  least 
remained  perfectly  free.  When  Voltaire  clothed  his  wit  in 
this  form,  when  Rousseau  embodied  in  it  his  enthusiasm  and 
his  eloquence,  when  Diderot  chose  to  make  it  the  vehicle  of  ; 
his  immorality,  romance  became  in  the  hands  of  each  of  these  ' 
men  of  gehiSs,  exactly  what  he  found  it  most  convenient  for 
himself  to  make  it.  The  two  first  of  them  had  many  fol- 
lowers, who  attempted  to  embody  a  similar  spirit  in  the  form 
of  a  more  regular  narration,  and  under  the  guise  of  a  more  i 
exact  delineation  of  the  present  modes  of  life.  No  one  is  \ 
ignorant  into  how  many  romances  the  principles  and  opinions  j 
of  Candida  have  been  wrought.  Others  were  more  the  imi- 
tators of  Rousseau ;  among  these  not  a  few  who  partook  in 
his  passion  for  nature,  have  chosen  to  lay  the  scene  of  their 
fictions  among  the  wildernesses  of  America, — regions  in 
which  they  might  certainly  consider  themselves  as  quite  free 
from  the  domestic  tyranny  of  Aristotle  and  Boileau.  The 
most  distinguished  of  these  are  Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre,  and 
Chateaubriand. 

Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  Diderot,  made  use  of  the  romance  ^ 
very  frequently,  merely  because  they  knew  not  in  what  other  \ 
form  they  could  so  conveniently  express  certain  philosophi- ) 
cal  opinions.  But  if  we  regard  romance  as  a  species  of  po-  ; 
etry,  and  as  the  regular  representation  in  narration  or  inci- 1 
dents  taken  from  actual  life  and  manners,  it  is  quite  evident  I 
that  the  French  have  even  in  this  species  of  writing  been  the  I 

28 


326  ENGLISH  WRITERS  OF  ROMANCE. 

imitators  of  th«  English,  although  I  am  far  from  thinking 
that  they  have  attained  equal  excellence  with  them.  In  in- 
vention and  power  of  representation,  perhaps  Richardson 
may  be  entitled  to  the  first  place.  Although  this  writer  has 
already  become  antiquated  and  obsolete  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  although  his  attempts  at  the  higher  species  of  poetic 
fiction  are  in  the  main  unsuccessful,  and  although  his  ex- 
treme copiousness  is  vulgar  and  disagreeable,  we  should,  I 
suspect,  attribute  the  decline  of  his  popularity  to  any  thing 
rather  than  a  deficiency  of  genius.  The  species  of  writing 
which  he  adopted  is  a  false  one,  and  even  a  more  powerful 
genius  than  that  of  Richardson  could  not  easily  get  over  the 
difficulties  which  it  presents.  Among  the  modern  imitators 
of  Gervantes,  the  most  accomplished  arc  Fielding  and  Smol- 
let.  Of  all  romances  in  miniature  (and  perhaps  this  is  the 
best  shape  in  which  romances  can  appear,)  the  Vicar  of 
Wakefield  is,  I  think,  the  most  exquisite.  That  other  spe- 
cies of  romance,  of  which  the  purpose  is  not  narration  but 
humour,  and  which  loses  itself  in  the  mere  play  of  wit  and 
sentiment,  was  carried  by  its  first  inventor,  Sterne,  to  a  point 
of  excellence  at  which  none  of  his  French  imitators  have 
arrived. 

If  we  must  give  an  opinion  of  those  works  of  intellect 
which  serve  the  purposes  of  mere  fashion  and  daily  use,  as 
we  should  of  any  other  species  of  fashionable  manufacture, 
I  think  the  common  run  of  English  novels  and  romances 
are  as  much  superior  to  the  common  run  of  the  French,  as 
Smollet  and  Fielding  are  superior  to  the  best  of  the  French 
novelists. 

I  must  not  omit  to  mention  one  circumstance  which  has 
been  extremely  unpropitious  to  French  romance ;  I  allude 
to  the  extraordinary  abundance  in  this  literature  of  memoirs, 
confessions,  books  of  letters  and  anecdotes,  all  more  or  less 
partaking  in  the  nature  of  the  romance.  I  am  not  aware 
that  any  tale  of  Marmontel  has  ever  excited  so  universal  an 
interest  as  his  memoirs ;  and  I  am  quite  sure  that  no  French 
romance  ever  produced  half  so  much  effect  as  the  Confes- 
sions of  Rousseau. 

In  general,  poetry,  during  the  eighteenth  century,  was 
driven  out  of  fashion  in  France  by  prose  ;  this,  we  must  ad- 
mit, although  not  without  many  great  errors  and  faults,  was 


BÜFFON  AND  ROUSSEAU  COMPARED.  327 

rich,  and  in  the  hands  of  the  most  eminent  writers  was  de- 
veloped with  the  highest  power  and  eloquence.  Voltaire's 
style  in  prose  is  animated  and  witty  like  himself;  it  is  per- 
fectly adapted  to  him  and  his  purposes.  The  more  severe 
French  critics  disapprove  of  his  prose,  and  in  history,  in- 
deed, I  think  it  is  by  no  means  a  suitable  one.  Many  Ger- 
mans find  something  very  delightful  to  them  in  the  style  of 
Diderot,  and  I  agree  with  them  that  he  shews  a  perception 
and  feeling  of  the  more  delicate  beauties  of  imitative  art  by 
no  means  common  among  the  writers  of  his  country ;  but 
his  language  is  incorrect  and  hasty,  and  wholly  devoid  of 
that  pure  elegance  which  characterizes  the  witty  writings  of 
the  best  French  authors.  In  respect  to  style,  Buflbn  and 
Rousseau  are  justly  regarded  with  the  highest  admiration.. 
The  former  is  perhaps  the  richest  and  most  graceful  of  the 
two  ;  but  he  was  so  much  fettered  by  the  nature  of  his  work^ 
that  he  never  could  introduce  his  rhetoric  vv^ithout  an  epi- 
sode, and  this  has  destroyed  in  a  great  measure  the  effect 
which  he  was  fitted  by  nature  to  produce.  It  may  appear 
natural  enough  that  he  should  have  given  his  theory  of  love 
in  the  article  Dove.  But  we  could  scarcely  have  looked  for 
a  rhetorical  treatise  on  the  subject  of  the  dispersion  of  na- 
tions under  the  word  Hare.  Aristotle  allowed  himself  no. 
such  liberties  in  his  capacity  of  natural  historian.  As  a  sci- 
entific writer  Buffon  can  sustain  no  comparison  with  the 
illustrious  Greek  whom  it  was  his  chief  ambition  to  rivaL 
Upon  the  whole,  I  coincide  with  those  who  give  the  prefe- 
rence to  Rousseau  over  Buffon  ;  for,  although  his  style  is  in. 
particular  respects  equally  defective,  there  is  more  unity  of 
purpose,  and  a  more  eloquent  flow  of  composition  in  his 
works.  His  charm  lies  much  more  in  this  last  peculiarity, 
than  in  the  extraordinary  beauty  of  individual  passages.  My 
feelings  perfectly  accord  with  those  who  esteem  Rousseau 
the  first  of  all  the  French  writers  of  the  last  century,  in  re- 
gard to  skill  and  power  of  eloquence;  but  I  must  not  conceal 
from  you  that  I,  nevertheless,  look  upon  the  beauty  of  his 
composition  as  holding  a  place  extremely  below  the  sublime 
oratory  of  Bossuet. 

Should  the  present  condition  of  affairs  ever  be  altered, 
and  the  superiority  of  prose  over  poetry  in  the  language  and 
literature  of  France  become  less  tyrannical ;  in  other  words, 


328  PREDILECTION  FOR  FRENCH  TASTE. 

should  poetry  ever  revive  among  the  French,  I  am  clearly 
of  opinion,  that  their  best  means  of  attaining  great  excellence 
will  consist,  not  in  any  strict  imitation  of  English  models, 
or  of  any  foreign  models  whatever,  but  in  a  hearty  recur- 
rence to  the  old  spirit  and  poetry  of  their  own  nation.  The 
imitation  of  another  nation  can  never  be  perfectly  successful, 
for  the  most  perfect  productions  of  this  nation  remain  always 
foreign  to  those  who  make  them  their  models.  Every  na- 
tion has  enough  in  its  power  when  it  can  go  back  to  its  own 
original  and  most  ancient  poetry  and  legends.  The  farther 
back  we  go  in  history,  the  more  intimate  do  we  find  the 
connection  between  different  nations  to  be.  But  it  is  in  the 
very  first  ages  of  national  existence  that  the  foundations  both 
of  national  character  and  national  poetry  are  laid. 

In  England,  at  the  beginning  of  last  century,  the  leaning 
towards  a  French  taste  in  poetry  was  still  evident ;  its  in- 
fluence is  apparent  in  the  elaborate  versification  of  Pope, 
and  in  the  tragedy  which  Addison  wrote  with  a  view  to 
promote  what  he  conceived  to  be  more  just  ideas  concerning 
poetical  theor}''  among  his  countrymen.  Yet  both  of  these 
authors  contributed  in  no  small  degree  towards  bringing 
Shakespeare  and  Milton  out  of  oblivion.  Pope's  translation 
of  Homer,  however  remote  it  may  be  from  the  simplicity 
of  the  old  bard,  increased,  nevertheless,  the  general  love  for 
this  great  poet  of  nature  and  antiquity,  and  is  itself  a  proof 
of  the  existence  of  this  love.  In  the  original  poems  of  Pope, 
we  can  perceive  abundant  traces  of  that  predilection  for 
thought  which  has  rendered  didactic  poetry  so  much  a  fa- 
vourite among  the  English.  I  have  already  expressed  my 
belief,  that  this  species  contains  always  something  of  the 
frigid  and  unpoetic;  and  England  has  furnished  another 
example  that,  such  as  it  is,  it  becomes  very  soon  exhausted. 
The  common  materials  of  didactic  poetry  were,  however, 
often  combined  in  England  with  the  more  poetical  elements 
of  passion  and  melancholy ;  as,  for  example,  in  the  gloomy 
and  enthusiastic  Young.  Thomson  expressed  his  feelings 
more  tastefully  and  beautifully  in  that  species  of  poetry  so 
much  loved  by  his  countrymen,  and,  after  his  own  time,  so 
much  copied  by  foreigners — the  descriptive.  The  passion 
loT  nature  was  the  origin  of  the  national  love  of  Ossian ; 
and  although  neither  the  sorrow  of  OasiaOj  nor  the  despair 


DECLINE  OF  POETRY.  329 

• 

of  Young,  be  every  where  prevalent,  the  spirit  of  serious 
meditation  is  certainly  much  more  diffused  over  the  lyrical 
poems  of  England  during  the  eighteenth  century,  than  even 
those  of  France.  By  the  side  of  the  ever  increasing  vene- 
ration  of  Shakespeare,  there  grew  up,  chiefly  in  consequence 
of  the  writings  of  Percy,  a  passionate  love  for  the  old  ballads 
and  popular  poems.  The  more  of  these  were  discovered, 
(and  the  wealth  of  the  Scots  in  particular  is  almost  bound- 
less,) the  more  did  the  love  of  them  overcome  that  of  every- 
other  kind  of  writing-,  and  enofross  the  whole  of  the  Enoflish 
literature,  with  the  single  exception  of  romances  and  plays 
for  daily  use.  In  France,  then,  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth, 
and  begimiing  of  the  eighteenth  centuries,  the  higher  kinds 
of  poetry  were  cultivated  in  a  manner  too  regular  and  pre- 
eise,  and  gradually  sunk  into  the  tone  of  social  wit.  In. 
England,  on  the  other  hand,  serious  thoughts  and  poetical 
descriptions  of  natural  scenery  were  the  chief  materials  at 
the  commencement  of  the  last  century,  and,  at  its  close,  the 
universal  passion  was  for  the  ancient  national  ballads — me- 
lancholy echoes  of  the  lost  poetry  of  a  more  heroic  time. 
Those  acquainted  with  the  modern  literature  of  England 
are  well  aware  how  this  propensity  has  been  fostered  by  the 
genius  of  the  poets  who  are  our  own  contemporaries. 

Upon  the  whole,  during  last  century,  the  state  of  poetry 
was  a  very  poor  one,  at  least  when  compared  with  the 
riches  of  antecedent  times,  even  in  countries  where  poetry 
is  intermingled  with  all  the  enjoyments  of  life,  as  in  Spain  ; 
or  where  the  spirit  of  art  forms  almost  the  character  of  the 
nation,  as  in  Italy.  In  this  last  country,  however,  although 
the  higher  species  of  poetry  produced  no  new  works  worthy 
of  being  placed  by  the  side  of  those  of  the  more  ancient  pe- 
riod, the  theatre,  at  least,  was  more  successful  and  fruitful- 
than  it  ever  before  had  been.  In  Metastasio,  Goldoni,  Goz- 
zi,  Alfieri,  we  may  discover,  in  a  separate  state,  all  those 
elements  of  a  poetical  drama,  which,  in  a  more  blended  con- 
dition, characterize  our  own  stage.  In  Metastasio  we  find 
the  highest  musical  beauty  of  language ;  in  Goldoni  com- 
mon life  is  represented  in  a  light  and  delightful  manner, 
with  those  airy  accompaniments  of  masking  and  carnival 
which  appear  natural  to  an  Italian.  In  Gozzi's  fantastic 
popular  stories  and  plays  of  witchcraft  and  spectacle,  we  can 

28* 


330  ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  DRAMA  COMPARED. 

perceive  an  abundance  of  the  true  poetical  power  of  invention; 
but  there  is  a  great  want  ofthat  musical  harmony  and  elegance 
of  fancy  which  are  requisite  before  invention  can  take  just 
possession  of  the  stage.  In  the  dramas  of  Alfieri,  an  attempt 
is  made  to  revive  the  sublimity  of  the  antique;  an  attempt 
so  noble,  that  it  is  well  worthy  of  great  praise,  even  when 
it  is  not  entirely  successful. 

I  am  not  certain  but  the  same  remark  which  I  made  a 
few  pages  back,  respecting  the  comparative  merits  of  the 
modern  French  and  English  romances,  might  be  with  equal 
propriety  applied  to  their  modem  dramas.  Both  are  mere 
species  of  manufacture,  and  I  think  the  English  are  rather 
the  best  of  the  two.  The  Italian  theatre  lies  much  nearer 
ourselves,  both  in  regard  to  external  shape  and  later  develop- 
ment. 

The  criticisal  books  of  the  English,  and  in  particular 
most  of  their  treatises  concerning  poetry  and  the  imitative 
arts,  are  distinguished  by  greater  freedom,  originality,  and 
knowledge  of  the  antique,  and  bear  on  these  accounts  more 
affinity  to  our  modes  of  thinking  than  those  of  the  French. 
Although,  however,  our  German  criticism  certainly  received 
its  first  impulse  from  the  study  of  the  English  works  of 
Harris,  Home,  Hurd,  Watson,  &c.  we  soon  became  suffi- 
ciently independent  of  these ;  and,  perhaps,  in  no  department 
of  our  literature  is  there  so  much  originality  as  in  this. 

Of  all  the  works  connected  with  elegant  literature  which 
the  English  produced  during  the  last  century,  by  far  the 
most  important  are  their  great  historical  writings.  They 
have,  in  this  department,  surpassed  all  the  other  European 
nations ;  they  had,  at  all  events,  the  start  in  point  of  time ; 
and  have  become  the  standard  models  both  in  France  and 
in  Germany.  The  first  place  is,  I  believe,  universally 
given  to  David  Hume.  But  however  salutary  may  be  the 
spirit  of  scepticism  in  the  conduct  of  historical  researches,  I 
am  strongly  of  opinion  that  this  spirit,  when  it  is  not  con- 
fined to  events  alone,  but  extends  its  doubts  to  all  the  prin- 
ciples of  morality  and  religion,  is  by  no  means  becoming  in 
a  great  national  historian,  and  will,  in  the  end,  diminish  in 
a  very  considerable  measure  the  influence  which  the  native 
genius  of  this  singular  man  might  well  have  entitled  him 
to  maintain  over  the  minds  of  his  countrymen. 


Hume  and  Robertson's  histories.  331 

Narrow  principles  and  views  of  things  not  perfectly  just, 
are,  I  am  free  to  confess,  in  my  estimation,  much  better  fitted 
for  a  great  historian  than  no  principles  at  all,  and  a  deaden- 
ing want  of  feeling,  warmth,  and  passion.  When  these  are  re- 
moved, the  only  remaining  means  of  creating  interest  in  a 
historical  work  is  the  love  of  opposing  the  ruling  opinions 
and  of  paradoxy.  The  leaning  to  this  species  of  opposition 
is  most  evident  in  Hume.  However  praiseworthy  and  salu- 
tary it  might  be,  that  such  a  writer  as  Hume  was,  should 
take  up  a  set  of  opinions  opposed  to  those  of  the  Whigs — a 
party  in  his  day,  as  well  as  in  our  own,  possessed  of  per- 
haps too  much  influence  over  the  literature  of  England — 
and  should  represent  a  most  important  part  of  the  British 
history  with  a  predilection  for  the  unfortunate  house  of 
Stuart,  and  the  principles  of  the  Tories ;  it  is  evident,  that 
had  he  written  without  any  such  views,  he  might  have  at- 
tained to  an  eminence  far  beyond  that  which  he  has  reached, 
and  descended  to  posterity  not  as  the  first  of  all  party  writers 
of  history,  but  as  the  author  of  a  truly  great  national  work, 
the  spirit  and  excellence  of  which  should  have  been  equally 
admired  and  appreciated  by  all  the  English.  In  his  treat- 
ment of  the  elder  periods  of  the  English  history,  he  is  quite 
unsatisfactory  and  meagre;  he  had  no  love  for  its  antiquities, 
and  could  not  transport  himself  back  into  the  spirit  of  re- 
mote ages. 

In  regard  to  style,  few  writers  of  any  country  can  sustain 
a  comparison  with  Robertson ;  his  expressions  are  select  and 
elegant,  but  always  clear  and  unlaboured.  But  he  is  very 
inferior  in  respect  to  other  matters  of  far  greater  importance, 
— the  research  and  import  of  his  histories.  The  English 
themselves  are  now  pretty  well  convinced  that  he  is  a  care- 
less, superficial,  and  blundering  historian,  although  they 
study  his  works,  and  are  right  in  doing  so,  as  models  of  pure 
composition,  extremely  deserving  of  attention,  during  the 
present  declining  state  of  English  style.  To  speak  from  my 
own  feelings,  I  think  Robertson,  although  upon  the  whole  a 
beautiful  writer,  is  too  fond  both  of  verbosity  and  of  anti- 
thesis. The  ambition  of  fine  writing,  and  of  the  desire  to 
treat  matters  in  an  elaborate  and  oratorical  manner,  appear 
to  me  to  be  extremely  erroneous  and  out  of  place  in  a  writer 
of  history.     If  historical  composition  is  to  be  considered 


332  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  GIBBON  S  STYLE. 

merely  as  a  display  of  writing-,  no  modern  author  need  ever 
flatter  himself  with  the  least  hope,  I  do  not  say  of  equalling-, 
but  of  approaching  the  great  historians  of  antiquity.  We 
have  it  in  our  power,  however,  to  surpass  them  in  another 
way,  namely,  by  considering  history  in  a  more  scientific 
manner,  and  making  use  of  those  opportunities  and  instru- 
ments of  information  in  which  our  times  are  so  much  supe- 
rior to  those  of  Greece  and  Rome.  If  we  make  this  our 
object,  the  best  style  which  we  can  adopt  is  the  most  simple ; 
we  should  write  clearly  and  carefully,  but  avoid  all  appear- 
ance of  artifice,  superfluity,  afllectation,  or  ambitiousness. 

Gibbon  is  a  writer  full  of  thoughts ;  his  language  is  in 
general  powerful  and  exquisite,  but  it  has,  to  a  great  excess, 
the  faults  of  elaborateness,  pompousness,  and  monotony.  His 
style  is  full  of  Latin  and  French  words  and  phrases.  The 
English  language,  as  being  of  so  very  mixed  a  nature,  and 
as  possessing  such  a  variety  of  words  and  phrases,  and  con- 
structions, Latin,  French,  and  domestic,  has  no  very  exact 
standard  to  regulate  the  proportion  of  the  different  elements 
which  are  placed  at  the  disposal  of  those  Avho  use  it.  That 
elaborate  and  half-Latin  manner  of  writing  by  which  Gib- 
bon is  distinguished,  had  before  him  been  brought  very  much 
into  fashion  by  the  example  of  the  critic  Johnson ;  in  prin- 
ciple at  least  the  English  have  now  departed  from  it,  and 
speak  of  it  as  a  false  species,  and  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  their 
language.  The  Avork  of  Gibbon,  however  instructive  and 
fascinating  it  may  be,  is  nevertheless  at  bottom  an  offensive 
one,  on  account  of  his  deficiency  in  feeling,  and  his  propen- 
sity to  the  infidel  opinions  and  impious  mockeries  of  Vol- 
taire. These  are  things  extremely  unworthy  of  a  historian, 
and  in  the  periodic  and  somewhat  cumbrous  style  of  Gibbon, 
they  appear  set  off*  to  far  less  advantage  than  in  the  light  and 
airy  compositions  of  his  master.  He  never  seems  to  be  na- 
turally a  wit,  but  impresses  us  with  the  idea  that  he  would 
very  fain  be  one  if  he  could.  Although  I  have  mentioned 
some  faults  which  I  think  I  perceive  in  each  of  these  three 
great  writers,  yet  their  general  excellence  is  not  to  be  dispu- 
ted, and  is  felt  by  none  more  deeply  than  myself;  they  ap- 
pear indeed  to  great  advantage  with  whomsoever  we  com- 
pare them,  and  never  more  so  than  when  we  turn  from  their 
writings  to  those  of  their  followers  and  imitators.     With 


DECLINE  OF  HISTORICAL  WRITING.  333 

all  the  abundance  of  his  Italian  eleg-ance,  what  is  the  over- 
loaded and  affected  Roscoe  when  compared  with  Gibbon  1 
Coxe,  although  master  of  a  good  and  classical  style,  resem- 
bles Robertson  in  no  respect  so  much  as  in  the  superficial- 
ness  of  his  researches ;  and  the  statesman  Fox  has  nothing 
in  common  with  Hume  but  the  bigotry  of  his  party  zeal. 
The  art  of  historical  writing  is  evidently  quite  on  the  de- 
cline in  England.  One  great  cause  of  this  consists,  I  im- 
agine, in  the  want  of  any  stable  and  satisfactory  philosophy 
— a  defect  sufficiently  apparent  even  in  three  great  writers 
whom  I  have  enumerated.  Without  some  rational  and  due 
conceptions  of  the  fate  and  destiny  of  man,  it  is  impossible 
to  form  any  just  and  consistent  opinion,  even  concerning  the 
progress  of  events,  the  development  of  times,  and  the  for- 
tunes of  nations.  In  every  situation  history  and  philosophy 
should  be  as  much  as  possible  united.  Philosophy,  if  alto- 
gether separated  from  history,  and  destitute  of  the  spirit  of 
criticism,  which  is  the  result  of  the  union  to  which  I  have 
alluded,  can  become  nothing  more  than  a  wild  existence  of 
sect  and  formality.  History,  on  the  other  hand,  without  the 
animating  spirit  of  philosophy,  is  merely  a  dead  heap  of 
useless  materials,  devoid  of  internal  unity,  proper  purpose, 
or  worthy  result.  The  want  of  satisfying  and  sane  vieAvs 
and  principles,  is  now  here  more  conspicuous  than  in  those 
histories  of  mankind,  as  they  have  been  called,  originally 
produced  in  England,  and  more  recently  written  among 
ourselves.  From  the  immense  storehouse  of  travels  and 
voyages,  a  few  facts  are  collected,  which  make  up  loose  por- 
traits of  the  fisher,  the  hunter,  the  emigration  of  the  early 
nations,  and  the  different  conditions  of  agricultural,  pastoral, 
and  commercial  peoples.  This  is  called  a  view  of  the  his- 
tory of  mankind,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  contains  many 
individual  points  of  great  interest  and  importance,  with  re- 
spect to  the  progress  and  habits  of  our  species.  Such  would 
be  the  case,  even  if  we  should  treat  of  men  entirely  accord- 
ing to  their  corporeal  subdivisions  of  white,  black,  red,  and 
broAvn.  But  how  little  is  gained  by  all  this  as  to  the  only 
real  question,  an  answer  to  which  should  form  the  proper 
history  of  mankind !  How  little  do  we  learn  as  to  the  ori- 
gin and  proper  state,  or  the  present  lamentable  and  fallen 
condition  of  human  nature  !     The  answer  to  this  question, 


334  MODERN  SCHOOLS  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

which  is  the  essence  of  all  history,  can  only  be  supplied  by 
religion  and  philosophy;  that  philosophy,  I  mean,  which 
has  no  other  ambition  and  no  other  end  but  to  support  reli- 
gion. In  these  false  histories  of  mankind,  the  worthy  off- 
spring of  the  degraded  and  material  philosophy  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  the  predominant  idea  is  always,  that  man 
sprung  originally  from  the  dust  like  a  mushroom,  and  differ- 
ed from  it  only  by  the  possession  of  locomotive  power  and 
of  consciousness.  The  ambition  of  their  authors  is  to  rep- 
resent us  as  originally  brutes,  and  to  shew  how,  by  the  pro- 
gress of  our  own  ingenious  contrivances,  art  has  been  added 
to  art,  and  science  to  science,  till  our  nature  has  gradually 
reached  the  high  eminence  on  which  it  now  stands.  The 
greater  intimacy  of  connection  can  be  established  between 
us  and  the  ourang-outang,  (that  favourite  of  so  many  phil- 
osophers of  the  last  century,)  the  more  rational  are  supposed 
to  be  our  opinions  concerning  our  species,  and  its  history. 

The  philosophy  of  sensation,  which  was  unconsciously 
bequeathed  to  the  world  by  Bacon,  and  reduced  to  the  shape 
of  a  regular  system  by  Locke,  first  displayed  in  France  the 
true  immorality  and  destructiveness  of  which  it- is  the  parent, 
and  assumed  the  appearance  of  a  perfect  sect  of  atheism.  In 
England  it  took  a  different  course ;  in  that  country  it  could 
not  indeed  be  supposed  likely  to  produce  the  same  effects, 
because  the  old  principles  of  religion  were  regarded  as  far 
too  intimately  connected  with  national  welfare,  to  be  easily 
abandoned.  The  spirit  of  English  thought  was  moreover 
naturally  inclined  to  adopt  the  paradoxical  and  sceptical  side 
of  this  philosophy  rather  than  the  material  and  atheistical. 
The  most  singular  phenomenon  in  the  whole  history  of  phi- 
losophy is  perhaps  the  existence  of  such  a  man  as  Berkeley, 
who  carried  the  system  of  Locke  so  far,  as  utterly  to  disbe- 
lieve the  existence  of  the  external  world,  and  vet  continued 
all  the  while  a  devout  Christian  bishop.  How  external  ob- 
jects come  into  contact  with  our  intellect,  so  that  it  forms  no- 
tions of  them — this  was  a  point  upon  which  the  philosophy 
of  that  time  neither  came  nor  could  come  to  any  satisfactory 
conclusion.  All  that  we  perceive  or  feel  of  these  things,  is 
after  all  only  an  impression,  a  change  upon  ourselves.  We 
may  pursue  it  as  far  as  we  will ;  Ave  can  lay  hold  on  only 
such  a  notion  or  perception  of  an  object,  not  the  object  itself, 


BERKELEY  AND  HUME.  335 

—that  seems,  the  more  we  seek  it,  to  fly  the  farther  from  us. 
If  we  consider  nature,  as  either  itself  animated,  or  as  the 
medium  instrument  and  expression  of  life,  then  this  perplexity- 
is  at  an  end,  and  every  thing  becomes  clear.  We  have  no 
difficulty  in  conceiving,  that  between  two  living  and  mutual- 
ly operating  spiritual  natures,  there  may  exist  a  third  nature 
apparently  inanimate,  to  serve  as  the  bond  of  connection  and 
mutual  operation,  to  be  their  word  and  language,  or  to  serve 
as  the  separation  and  wall  of  partition  between  them.  We 
are  familiar  with  such  an  idea,  from  our  own  experience, 
because  Ave  cannot  have  any  intercourse  of  thought  with  our 
brother  men,  or  even  analyze  our  thoughts,  except  through 
the  operation  of  exactly  similar  means.  The  simple  convic- 
tion, however,  that  the  sensible  world  is  merely  the  habita- 
tion of  the  intellectual,  and  a  medium  of  separation  as  well 
as  connection  between  intellectual  natures,  had  been  lost 
along  with  the  knowledge  and  idea  of  the  world  of  intellect, 
and  the  animating  impression  of  its  existence.  The  philoso- 
phy of  the  senses  stumbled,  in  this  way,  at  the  very  thresh- 
old, and  proceeded  to  become  more  and  more  perplexed  in 
every  step  of  its  progress.  Berkeley  believed  that  the  ex- 
ternal world  has  no  real  existence,  and  that  our  notions  and 
impressions  of  it  are  directly  communicated  to  us  by  the 
Deity.  From  the  same  doubts  Hume  fell  into  a  totally  dif- 
ferent system,  the  sceptical, — a  philosophy  which  humbles 
itself  before  its  doubts,  and  denies  the  possibility  of  attaining 
knowledge.  This  man,  by  the  penetrating  and  convulsive 
influence  of  his  scepticism,  determined  the  future  condition 
of  English  philosophy.  Since  his  time  nothing  more  has 
been  attempted  than  to  erect  all  sorts  of  bulwarks  against  the 
practical  influence  of  this  destructive  scepticism;  and  to 
maintain,  by  various  substitutes  and  aids,  the  pile  of  moral 
principle  uncorrupted  and  entire.  Not  only  with  Adam 
Smith,  but  with  all  their  later  philosophers,  national  welfare 
is  the  ruling  and  central  principle  of  thought, — a  principle 
excellent  and  praiseworthy  in  its  due  situation,  but  quite  un- 
fitted for  being  the  centre  and  oracle  of  all  knowledge  and 
science.  The  two  great  substitutes  to  which  I  allude  are 
neither  scientifically  nor  practically  of  a  durable  and  effec- 
tive nature.  Common  sense  is  poor  when  compared  with 
certain  knowledge,  and  moral  feeling  is  a  very  inadequate 


336  PECULIARITIES  OF  MODERN  PHILOSOPHY. 

foundation  for  a  proper  system  of  ethics.  Were  the  com- 
mon sense  of  man  even  as  sound  and  universal  as  these  Eng- 
lish reasoners  maintain,  if  we  should  take  its  conclusions  for 
the  last,  and  subject  them  to  no  higher  review,  we  should 
find  it  more  likely  to  cut  than  to  unloose  the  knot  of  the 
great  questions  in  philosophy.  The  innate  curiosity  of  man 
is  not  to  be  so  satisfied,  but  however  frequently  we  may  put 
it  off,  returns  to  the  charge  with  undiminished  pertinacity. 
Moral  feeling  and  sympathy  are  things  too  frail  and  uncer- 
tain for  a  rule  of  moral  action.  We  must  have,  in  addition 
to  these,  an  eternal  law  of  rectitude,  derived  not  from  expe- 
rience and  feeling,  but  from  reason  or  from  God.  A  fair 
and  unshaken  faith  is  indispensable  for  our  welfare.  But 
the  faith  which  the  English  philosophers  have  established 
upon  the  dictates  of  common  sense  and  moral  feeling,  is  like 
the  props  upon  which  it  leans,  uncertain  and  unworthy  of 
our  confidence.  It  is  not  worthy  of  the  name  of  faith ;  the 
name  applied  to  the  impression  made  upon  us  by  rea.son  and 
external  experience,  and  with  equal  propriety  to  the  impres- 
sions we  receive  in  a  totally  diflferent  way  from  the  internal 
voice  of  conscience  and  the  revelations  of  a  superior  nature. 
That  which  is  called  faith  among  these  men  is  nothing  more 
than  weak  and  self-doubting  faith  of  necessity, — a  thing  as 
incapable  of  standing  the  test  of  time,  as  the  frail  faith  of 
custom  is  to  resist  the  arguments  of  unprincipled  sophistry. 
This  nation  is  powerful  and  free  in  its  whole  being  and  life. 
Even  in  poetry,  it  regards  the  profound  and  internal  rather 
than  the  outward  and  ornamental,  but  by  means  of  its  own 
errors  it  is  cramped  and  confined  in  its  philosophy.  In  re- 
gard to  this  mighty  department  of  human  intellect  and  exer- 
tion, the  English  of  the  later  times  are  neither  original  nor 
great ;  they  even  appear  to  be  fundamentally  inferior  to  some 
of  the  best  writers  among  the  French.  If  a  few  authors  in 
England  have  pursued  an  intellectual  path  of  their  own, 
quite  different  from  the  common  one,  they  ha\^e  exerted  no 
powerful,  or  at  least  no  extensive,  influence  over  their  fellow- 
countrymen.  The  attempts  with  which  I  myself  am  ac- 
quainted do  not  indeed  display  genius  such  as  might  entitle 
them  to  much  consideration. 

We  may  compare  the  mode  of  philosophical  thought  in 
England,  to  a  man  who  bears  every  external  mark  of  health 


FUTURE  CRISIS  OF  ENGLAND.  337 

and  vigour,  but  who  is  by  nature  prone  to  a  dangerous  dis- 
temper. He  has  repressed  the  first  eruptions  of  the  disease 
by  means  of  palliatives,  but  the  evil  has  on  that  very  account 
had  the  more  leisure  to  entwine  itself  with  the  roots  of  his 
constitution.  The  disease  of  philosophical  error  and  unbe- 
lief can  never  be  got  the  better  of,  unless  by  a  thorough  and 
radical  cure,  I  think  for  this  reason  that  it  is  extremely 
probable,  nay,  thai  it  is  almost  certain,  England  has  yet  to 
undergo  a  mighty  crisis  in  her  philosophy,  and  of  necessity, 
in  her  morality  and  her  religion. 

If  we  regard  not  so  much  the  immediate  practical  conse- 
quences, but  rather  the  internal  progress  of  intellect  itself, 
we  shall  be  almost  compelled  to  think  error  is  less  danger- 
ous when  open  and  complete,  than  when  half-formed  and 
disguised.  In  the  midst  of  moderate  errors  our  self-love 
keeps  us  ignorant  of  our  danger.  But  when  error  has 
reached  its  height,  it  is  the  nature  of  the  human  mind  to 
promote  a  re-action,  and  to  rise  with  new  strength  and  power 
out  of  the  abyss  into  which  at  last  it  perceives  itself  to  have 
fallen. 

Such  a  return,  and  certainly  a  most  remarkable  one,  to 
the  truth  and  true  philosophy,  has  occurred  of  late  years  in 
France.  After  that  altar,  upon  which,  shortly  before,  reason, 
the  goddess  of  the  age,  was  worshipped,  more  appropriately 
than  her  devotees  suspected,  under  the  shape  of  an  actress  or 
a  harlot, — after  this  altar  had  been  purified,  and  religion  re- 
stored, after  a  church  without  a  creed  and  the  chimera  of 
Theophilanthropy  had  been  reduced  to  their  original  no- 
thingness, the  voice  of  oppressed  and  persecuted  truth  began 
on  every  side  to  make  itself  heard.  I  do  not  mean  to  refer 
in  any  particular  way  to  that  one  celebrated  writer  who  has 
consecrated  his  powerful  eloquence  entirely  to  the  service  of 
his  religion.  For  however  useful  Chateaubriand  may  have 
been  by  representing  Christianity  in  her  most  amiable  form 
and  her  beneficial  consequences,  nay,  however  necessary 
such  a  writer  as  he  is  may  have  been  to  break  the  ice  of  in- 
fidelity in  France,  he  has  attached  far  too  much  to  the  sen- 
sible and  external  pait  of  religion,  and  I  suspect,  indeed,  has 
never  penetrated  into  the  deep  and  proper  essence  of  our 
Christianity. 

29 


338  CHANGE  IN  FRENCH  LITERATURE. 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  in  a  quite  different  way, 
to  enlarge  the  mode  of  thinking-,  and  establish  a  higher  spe- 
cies of  philosophy  in  France.  Even  the  efforts  which  have 
been  made  to  introduce  and  naturalize  the  spirit  of  our  Ger- 
man philosophers  are  worthy  of  much  attention.  They  have 
been  supported  by  the  genius  and  erudition  of  several  of  the 
first  and  most  celebrated  Frenchmen  of  the  age.  The  at- 
tempt, indeed,  is  still  opposed  by  many  serious  and  almost 
insurmountable  obstacles.  Perhaps  the  Germanizing  French 
scholars  have  plunged  too  widely  into  the  whole  of  our  lite- 
rature, instead  of  thoroughly  mastering,  in  the  first  instance, 
the  principles  and  essence  of  our  philosophical  systems.  A 
still  more  important  difficulty  is  presented  by  the  lingering 
tone  of  infidel  thought,  with  which  the  general  body  of  the 
nation  is  still,  I  fear,  infected.  The  political  establishment 
and  external  observances  of  religion  are  not  sufficient  for  the 
purpose.  Philosophy  must  proceed  from,  and  return  to,  a 
sincere,  and  unalterable,  and  undoubting  faith. 

What  I  view  as  the  most  essential  and  important  change 
in  French  literature  of  these  last  years,  is  the  return  to  a 
higher  morality,  and  that  united  system  of  Platonic  and 
Christian  philosophy,  which  stands  exactly  in  the  opposite 
extreme  from  the  atheism  of  the  preceding  age.  In  some 
measure,  even  before  the  Revolution,  and  even  in  the  period 
of  the  most  entire  corruption,  this  return  had  been  begun. 
But  it  was  not  till  after  the  whole  system  of  thought  had  un- 
dergone a  convulsion,  that  it  began  to  manifest  its  perfect  in- 
fluence. A  few  philosophers,  cut  off  from  their  age,  and 
superior  to  it,  France  at  all  times  possessed.  I  may  refer,  in 
the  first  place,  to  Hemsterhuys,  who,  although  not  a  French- 
man by  birth,  wrote  entirely  in  this  language;  and  that,  too, 
with  so  much  grace  and  harmony,  that  even  in  this  point  of 
view  his  Socratic  dialogues  are  worthy  of  the  noble  spirit  of 
Platonism  and  Christianity  which  they  express.  The  re- 
turn has,  however,  been  most  of  all  promoted  by  two  very 
remarkable  philosophers,  men  in  all  their  views  and  prin- 
ciples thoroughly  Christian.  Of  the  one  of  these,  St.  Mar- 
tin, many  writings  were  known  even  before  the  Revolution, 
and  he  was  spoken  of  by  the  name  of  the  unknown  philoso- 
pher ;  the  other,  Bonald,  has  since  that  time  become  the  best 


ST.  MARTIN  AND  BONALD.  339 

and  most  profound  champion  of  the  old  French  monarchical 
constituti'on.  Both,  along  with  their  good  and  excellent 
qualities,  have  many  great  and  essential  errors.  They  are 
full  of  French  prejudices;  and  although  despisers  of  the 
spirit  of  their  own  age,  they  have  so  much  partaken  in  it  as 
to  be  very  unfit  judges  of  ages  and  nations  different  from 
their  own.  Even  the  most  essential  parts  of  their  philoso- 
phy bear  witness  at  what  period  they  wrote,  and  have  a  share 
of  the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  chief  error  of 
St.  Martin  consists  in  this,  that  he  viewed  religion  entirely 
as  a  matter  of  individual  revelation,  and  as  having  no  con- 
nection whatever  with  forms,  and  the  external  church  of 
God.  For  this,  in  the  situation  of  things  immediately  be- 
fore or  during  the  Revolution,  there  might,  indeed,  be  some 
apology ;  but  the  error  is  in  itself  a  dangerous  one,  and  has 
prevented,  in  a  great  measure,  the  powerful  genius  of  St. 
Martin  from  producing  the  effect  which  might  otherwise 
have  been  expected  to  follow  its  exertions.  He  belongs  to 
the  adherents  of  that  oriental  and  Christian  philosophy, 
which,  as  I  have  already  said,  although  despised  and  ridi- 
culed by  doctors  and  universities,  has,  ever  since  the  Revolu- 
tion, been  making  silent  but  sure  progress,  in  the  spirit  of 
the  age.  However  little  of  the  praise  of  invention  may  be 
due  to  St.  Martin,  and  however  much  of  error  may  be  min- 
gled with  all  his  ideas,  it  still  must  remain  a  very  remark- 
able circumstance,  that  at  the  period  when  France  was  most 
filled  with  atheism,  an  unknown  and  solitary  philosopher 
should  have  arisen,  w^ho  devoted  the  whole  of  his  talents  to 
destroy  the  atheistical  philosophy  of  the  time,  and  substitute 
in  its  place  the  doctrines  of  divine  revelation  and  ancient  tra- 
dition— a  Mosaic  and  Christian  system  of  philosophy.  It  is 
no  less  remarkable,  that  at  the  very  commencement  of  our 
century,  while  others  were  restoring  religion  merely  for 
political  purposes,  and  with  a  view  to  maintain  the  faith  of 
the  ignorant,  a  learned  jurist,  and  political  philosopher,  like 
Bonald,  should  have  seriously  made  the  attempt  to  found  the 
theory  of  justice  upon  God  alone,  and  that  of  government  on 
the  doctrines  of  the  Bible.  In  a  philosophical  point  of  view, 
we  may  blame  him  for  having  too  much  confounded  and 
identified  revelation  with  reason.     But  we  must  remember 


340  WILLIAM  JONES    WORKS. 

that  he  wrote  in  a  country  where  these  had  been  treated  as 
r>ot  only  distinct  but  irreconcileable  means  of  knowledge. 
Many  champions  of  Christianity  have  injured  themselves  by 
their  too  indiscriminating  rejection  of  all  philosophy.  Bo- 
nald  goes  into  the  other  extreme :  he  errs  by  making  Chris- 
tianity too  rational,  and  almost  resolving  it  into  reason. 
Truth  itself,  when  waging  war  with  error,  is  apt  to  go  to 
the  opposite  extremity,  and  to  regard  the  arguments  of  its 
adversairies  in  too  narrow  a  point  of  view.  After  such  errors 
and  principles  as  those  of  the  last  century  were,  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  human  mind  should  have  received  a  shock 
sufficient  to  render  it  incapable  of  moving  at  once  firmly  and 
independently  even  in  a  better  w^ay.  Such  appears  to  have 
been  the  case  with  these  illustrious  Frenchmen,  Bonald  and 
St.  Martin. 

Such  a  radical  change  in  philosophy  cannot  easily  occur 
in  England.  The  great  incidents  of  external  life,  commerce, 
and  the  British  constitution,  India  and  the  Continent,  en- 
gross the  active  intellect  of  this  most  active  of  all  countries. 
There  remains  no  talent  or  time  for  those  pursuits  of  deeper 
thought  and  philosophy,  in  which,  for  these  very  reasons, 
the  English  are  inferior  at  this  moment  to  the  French. 
Even  in  our  own  days,  however,  there  has  been  no  want  of 
illustrious  writers,  of  men  alike  distinguished  by  research 
and  eloquence,  in  England — these  stand  alone  as  tokens  of 
the  changing  spirit  of  our  time.  William  Jones  has  as  yet 
had  no  rivals  in  the  department  which  he  selected ;  no  one 
appears  to  have  comprehended,  as  he  did,  the  antiquities  of 
Asia,  and  above  all  of  India,  with  the  acuteness  of  a  philo- 
sopher, o-r  to  have  seen  the  mode  of  reconciling  every  thing 
with  th«  doctrine  and  history  of  the  Scriptures.  Were  such 
paths  pursued  with  spirit  and  power,  the  usual  prejudices 
of  British  thought  might  be  easily  got  rid  of  But  if  we 
are  to  praise  a  man  in  proportion  to  his  usefulness,  I  am 
persuaded  that  no  task  could  be  more  difficult  than  that  of 
doing  justice  to  another  Englishman,  his  contemporary,  the 
statesman  and  orator  Burke.  This  man  has  been  to  his 
own  country,  and  to  all  Europe — in  a  very  particular  man- 
ner to  Germany — a  new  light  of  political  wisdom,  and  mo- 
ral experience.  He  corrected  his  age  when  it  was  at  the 
height  of  its  revolutionary  frenzy;  ana  witkout  maintaining 


INFLUENCE  OF  BURKe's  PHILOSOPHY.  341 

any  system  of  philosophy,  he  seems  to  have  seen  farther  into 
the  true  nature  of  society,  and  to  have  more  clearly  compre- 
hended the  effect  of  religion  in  connecting  individual  secu- 
rity with  national  welfare,  than  any  philosopher,  or  any  sys- 
tem of  philosophy  of  any  preceding  age. 

29* 


LECTURE  XT. 


RETROSPECT — GERMAN    PHILOSOPHY^ — SPINOZA     AND     LEIBNITZ GERHTAK 

LANGUAGE  AND  POETRY  IN  THE    SIXTEENTH  AND  SEVENTEENTH  CENTU- 

RIES — LUTHER,     HANS     SACHS,     JACOB     BÖHME OPITZ,     THE      SILESIAN 

SCHOOL CORRUPTION    OF   TASTE  AFTER    THE    PEACE    OP  WESTPHALIA  ; 

OCCASIONAL    POETRY GERMAN     POETS    OP    THE     FIRST    HALF     OF    THE 

EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY FREDERICK   THE    SECOND  ;     KLOPSTOCK  ;    THE 

MESSIAD   AND     NORTHERN     MYTHOLOGY THE     CHIVALROUS     POEMS     OF 

WIELAND INTRODUCTION  OF  THE  ANCIENT  METRES  OF  QUANTITY  INTO 

THE  GERMAN  LANGUAGE ;  DEFENCE  OF  RHYME ADELUNG,  GOTTSCHED, 

AND    "  THE    (so  called)    GOLDEN    AGE" FIRST    GENERATION    OF   THS 

LATER  GERMAN  LITERATURE,  OR    "  THE  PERIOD    OF  THE  FOUNDERS.'' 

To  some  of  my  hearers  it  may  appear  as  idle  and  super- 
fluous to  write  against  the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, as  it  would  be  to  fight  with  the  shadow  of  a  departed' 
enemy.  In  truth,  however,  the  cases  are  not  at  all  parallel' 
ones,  although  I  can  easily  suppose  they  may  seem  so  to 
such  as  form  their  judgments  entirely  from  the  external  ap- 
pearances of  things.  The  evil  is  by  no  means  annihilated, 
although  it  has  become  less  visible.  In  England  the  dis- 
ease of  the  age  never  broke  out  openly,  and  for  that  A^ery 
reason  has  never  been  radically  cured.  In  that  country,  as 
in  France,  there  are  a  few  illustrious  exceptions,  and  sym- 
bols of  a  self  regenerating  age;  S}miptoms  of  a  gradual  re- 
turn from  error,  and  the  invincible  power  and  majesty  of 
truth.  But  I  fear  those  who  are  best  able  to  judge  will  agree 
with  me  in  suspecting  that  the  general  tone  of  thought,  par- 
ticularly among  those  who  have  the  empire  of  literature  in 
their  hands,  is  not  yet  altered.  Among  the  latest  writers  of 
France,  the  prevalence  of  the  old  system  is  still  manifest ; 
the  world  and  all  its  phenomena  are  still  explained  upon  the 
old  principles  of  the  atomical  and  material  philosophy.  Of 
3Ü  tke  foolish  hypotheses  which  have  ever  cheated  the  hur 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  PHILOSOPHY.  343 

man  intellect  with  the  empty  show  of  explanation,  that  of 
materialism  is  the  most  unsatisfactory.  In  a  scientific  point 
of  view,  it  is  void  of  foundation  and  fantastic ;  in  regard  to 
morality,  national  welfare,  and  religion,  its  influences  are 
utterly  unworthy  and  pernicious.  Although  this  system  is 
now  seldom  pursued  to  its  consequences,  and  although  expe- 
rience has  convinced  all  men  how  dangerous  these  inevita- 
bly are,  yet  we  have  still  before  our  eyes  the  miserable 
spectacle  of  men  entitled  to  every  respect  as  natural  philo- 
sophers, and  justly  occupying  a  high  place  in  the  intellec- 
tual scale  of  our  age,  who  disgrace  all  their  knowledge  by 
the  most  lamentable  and  childish  ignorance  respecting  what- 
ever is  most  truly  worthy  of  the  name  of  philosophy.  The 
cause  of  truth  is  gaining  strength  every  day,  but  these  men 
are  not  ashamed  to  advocate,  at  least  by  insinuations  and  ca- 
lumnies, the  cause  of  her  adversary.  Such  is  the  situation 
of  affairs  abroad.  Here,  in  Germany,  the  common  disease 
of  the  century,  the  false  philosophy,  and  the  mania  for  rea- 
son assumed  quite  a  different  appearance — a  form  of  more 
temperance,  and  perhaps  of  less  practical  danger.  We 
should  err  very  much,  nevertheless,  if  we  should  imagine 
that  the  evil  does  not  exist,  or  flatter  ourselves  that  our  dis- 
ease is  entirely  vanquished,  merely  because  the  symptoms 
have  underg-one  a  chansfe. 

If  the  German  philosophy  did  not  fall  into  such  violent 
extremes  as  the  French,  it  was  not  guarded  by  the  same 
strong  feelings  of  nationality,  whose  influertce  I  have  al- 
ready described  upon  the  English.  The  sentiment  of  na- 
tional union  had  before  this  time  become  quite  extinct  among 
the  subjects  of  our  innumerable  petty  states.  But  perhaps 
the  very  smallness  of  our  states  was  in  some  measure  the 
cause  of  our  security.  Every  thing  was  conducted  upon  so 
small  a  scale,  and  was  so  much  in  the  view  of  men,  that  no 
open  or  audacious  adoption  of  any  pernicious  systems  of  in- 
justice, such  as  those  of  Hobbes  or  Machiavel,  could  be  ven- 
tured upon.  Still,  however,  in  private  life,  manners  cer- 
tainly were  becoming  more  relaxed,  and  so  paving  the  most 
easy  way  for  vicious  theory. 

But  the  circumstance  which  preserved  the  German  phil- 
osophy, at  its  commencement,  from  falling  into  the  extreme 
©f  error,  Avas,  1  imagine,  the  erudition  of  the  German  wii- 


344  SPINOSA  AND  LEIBNITZ. 

ters.  These  were  in  general  full  of  recollections  and  ideas 
of  that  philosophy  of  antiquity,  which  had  become  entirely 
forgotten  in  France  and  England.  Leibnitz  was,  in  this 
point  of  view,  a  great  blessing  to  his  country.  It  is  very 
true  that  he  was  a  physician  who  made  use  of  palliatives, 
but  was  incapable  or  unambitious  of  effecting  a  radical  cure ; 
yet  even  this  was  much  if  we  consider  the  wants  of  the  time. 
He  was  a  scholar  as  well  as  a  philosopher,  and  his  works 
contain  innumerable  points  Avhich  call  us  back  to  those  who 
preceded  him.  It  is  perhaps  the  chief  fault  of  Leibnitz  that 
he  is  too  fond  of  reviving  exploded  difficulties,  but  even  by 
this  defect  of  his,  he  has  been  the  most  admirable  harbinger 
of  men  who  felt  within  them  the  spirit,  the  call,  and  the 
passion,  to  plunge  more  deeply  into  all  the  labyrinths  of 
thought,  and  all  the  secrets  of  knowledge.  He  marks  the 
point  of  transition  from  the  philosophy  of  the  seventeenth  to 
the  new  mode  of  thinking  of  the  eighteenth  century — one 
of  the  most  remarkable  eras  in  the  whole  history  of  man- 
kind. As  he  and  his  philosophy  have  never  exerted  much 
influence  out  of  Germany,  and  have  been  little  studied  in 
France,  and  not  at  all  in  England,  I  have  thought  fit  to  pass 
him  over  in  silence  while  treating  of  foreign  philosophers, 
and  reserved  him  for  a  place  by  himself  The  same  con- 
duct has  been  adopted  in  respect  to  his  adversary  Spinosa, 
because  he  too  has  had  a  similar  fate,  has  been  little  heard 
of  either  in  his  oum  country  or  in  England,  and  not  at  all 
in  France,  but  been  zealously  defended  and  attacked  by  Ger- 
mans alone.  Spinosa' s  greatest  error,  that  of  making  no 
distinction  between  God  and  the  world,  is  one  of  the  most 
pernicious  nature.  He  denied  to  individual  beings  indepen- 
dence and  self-direction,  and  saw  in  them  all  only  various 
manifestations  of  one  eternal  and  all  comprehending  exis- 
tence; he  thus  took  personality  from  the  Deity,  and  freedom 
from  man,  and  by  representing  all  that  is  immoral,  untrue, 
and  impious,  as  appearances,  not  realities,  he  went  far  to  de- 
stroy all  distinction  between  good  and  evil.  This  error  is  so 
intimately  connected  with  the  doctrines  of  unassisted  reason, 
that  it  is  probably  the  very  oldest  of  all  the  falsities  which 
sprung  up  in  the  room  of  the  truth  originally  communicated 
to  mankind  by  his  Maker.  But  Spinosa  threw  pantheism 
into  a  more  scientific  shape  than  it  ever  possessed  before  his 


THE  MORALITY  OF  SPINOSA.  345 

time.  The  error  itself  is  one  so  natural  to  scientific  and 
self-confident  reason,  that  Descartes,  from  whose  system  that 
of  Spinosa  immediately  sprung,  was  prevented  only  by  the 
want  of  depth  and  decision  in  his  spirit,  from  falling  into  the 
abyss  upon  the  brink  of  which  he  stood.  In  this,  as  in 
many  other  cases,  we  must  be  careful  to  separate  the  error 
from  the  person.  It  frequently  happens  that  he  who  first 
opens  up  a  .new  path  of  error,  who  even  thoroughly  pre- 
pares it,  and  points  it  out  in  the  most  decided  and  fearless 
manner,  is  nevertheless  far  less  dangerous  than  his  followers 
who  pursue  the  same  track  without  the  same  confidence. 
The  morality  of  Spinosa  is  not  indeed  that  of  the  Bible,  for 
he  himself  was  no  Christian,  but  it  is  still  a  pure  and  noble 
morality  resembling  that  of  the  ancient  Stoics,  perhaps  pos- 
sessing considerable  advantages  over  that  system.  That 
which  makes  him  strong  when  opposed  to  adversaries  who 
do  not  understand  or  feel  his  depth,  or  who,  unconsciously, 
have  fallen  into  errors  not  much  different  from  his,  is  not 
merely  the  scientific  clearness  and  decision  of  his  intellect, 
but  in  a  much  higher  degree  the  open-heartedness,  strong 
feeling  and  conviction  with  which  all  that  he  says  seems  to 
gush  from  his  heart  and  soul.  We  cannot  call  this  a  na- 
tural inspiration,  such  as  that  which  animates  the  poet,  the 
artist,  or  the  naturalist,  still  less  the  inspiration  of  the  super- 
natural world ;  for  Avhere  can  this  find  a  place  when  there 
is  no  faith  in  an  effective  Deity  ?  But  it  is  a  thorough  and 
penetrating  impression  and  feeling  of  the  eternal  which  ac- 
companies him  in  all  the  ranges  of  his  thought,  and  lifts  him 
above  the  world  of  the  senses.  The  remarkable  error  which 
lies  at  the  root  of  all  his  philosophy  is  indeed  a  pernicious 
and  detestable  one,  and  it  might  appear  as  if  nothing  could 
be  worse.  Yet  if  we  compare  the  error  of  Spinosa  with  the 
atheism  of  the  eighteenth  century,  we  shall  be  at  no  loss  to 
discover  a  mighty  difference  between  them.  That  material 
philosophy,  if  we  must  give  it  such  a  name,  which  explains 
eveiy  thing  by  matter,  and  gives  the  first  place  to  sense,  is 
an  error  which  seems  almost  to  lie  low^er  than  the  region  of 
humanity.  Rarely,  among  particular  individuals  who  have 
embraced  such  a  system,  can  there  be  much  reason  to  hope 
for  a  return  to  truth ;  although  there  can  be  no  difiiculty  in 
conceiving  that  an  age  or  nation,  which  has  seen  its  pernic- 


346  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LEIBNITZ. 

ious  moral  consequences  openly  displayed,  should  throw  it 
off  with  abhorrence.  The  high  spirituality,  on  the  contrary, 
of  that  other  error  into  which  Spinosa  fell,  may  well  appear 
to  leave  greater  means  and  more  open  paths  for  reformation. 
But,  after  all,  an  error  is  surely  so  much  the  more  perni- 
cious, that  it  is  fitted  to  seize  on  noble  and  intellectual  disci- 
ples ;  the  immediate  consequences  are  then  not  so  practically 
dangerous,  but  the  evil  principle  has  by  this  means  time  to 
fasten  itself  more  deeply,  and  sooner  or  later  is  sure  to  man- 
ifest the  power  of  its  corruption  upon  the  whole  either  of  an 
ao"e  or  of  a  nation ;  as  that  disease  is  the  most  fatal  to  the 
human  body  which  makes  its  slow  but  steady  attacks  upon 
the  very  vitals  of  our  frame. 

The  philosophy  of  Leibnitz  is  almost  entirely  fastened  up- 
on that  of  Spinosa.  It  is  almost  throughout  a  polemic  phil- 
osophy ;  and  even  when  it  does  not  assume  the  external  form 
of  controversy,  its  object  is  always  to  pull  down  the  common 
philosophy  of  his  age,  to  answer  it,  resolve  its  doubts,  and 
supply  its  deficiencies;  it  is  entirely  devoted  to  the  spirit  and 
necessities  of  his  time,  and  never  comes  forward  in  the  inde- 
pendence and  confidence  of  its  own  original  power.  The 
literary  sceptic  Bayle,  and  Locke,  the  founder  of  the  sensa- 
tion system,  were  the  principle  adversaries  of  Leibnitz,  to 
say  nothing  of  a  few  more  personal  opponents.  But  the 
most  prominent  of  them  all  is  Spinosa,  with  whom  he  fre- 
quently, nay,  almost  perpetually  contends,  even  where  he 
does  not  name  him,  as  if  Avith  an  invisible  and  dreadful  ene- 
my. Of  the  philosophers  with  whom  he  agrees,  and  of  the 
sources  from  which  he  derived  a  great  part  of  his  argu- 
ments, he  says  very  little.  It  was  no  part  of  his  character 
to  recognize  the  existence  of  an  eternal  and  spiritual  world, 
whereof  the  sensible  world  is  only  the  external  vehicle  and 
veil.  His  hypothesis,  on  the  contrary,  (according  to  which 
sensible  objects  are  merely  a  perplexed  chaos  of  solitary 
spiritual  principles  or  monads,  in  a  state  of  slumber,  or  im- 
perfection.) coincides  with,  or  at  least  stands  at  no  very  re- 
mote distance  from,  the  atomical  doctrine  of  Epicurus  and 
the  modern  atheists,  and  is  at  the  best  only  a  sort  of  inter- 
mediate system  between  that  and  the  proper  belief  hi  a  spir- 
itual Avorld.  His  attempt  to  solve  the  difficulties  of  the  con- 
temporary philosophy  concerning  the  connection  of  the  mind 


IDEAS  OF  TIME  AND  SPACE.  347 

and  the  body,  by  saying  that  the  common  Creator  of  both 
made  them  originally  to  go  together,  as  a  watchmaker  might 
make  two  watches,  is  only  a  piece  of  ingenious  sophistry,  and 
tends  to  give  a  degrading  view  of  the  nobler  part  of  our  na- 
ture. His  celebrated  Theodicee,  or  justification  of  God  on 
account  of  the  existence  of  moral  evil,  answers  that  question 
which  so  perpetually  recurs  to  the  natural  reason,  with  the 
bold  dexterity  of  a  practised  diplomatist,  who  conceives  it  to 
be  his  duty,  to  promote  by  every  means,  good,  bad,  or  indif- 
ferent, the  cause  of  his  master,  and  to  conceal  as  much  as 
possible  from  the  eyes  of  his  opponent  any  thing  that  seems 
favourable  to  the  other  side  of  the  question.  It  is  impossible 
for  the  philosophy  of  reason  to  answer  the  question  concern- 
ing the  existence  of  evil  in  the  world,  without  either  deny- 
ing the  existence  of  evil  in  contradiction  to  our  daily  expe- 
rience, or  ascribing  its  creation  to  the  Deity,  in  contradiction 
to  our  o\ATi  feeling  and  the  voice  of  conscience.  The  solu- 
tion of  Leibnitz  (that  of  optimism)  which  gave  so  much 
room  for  the  wit  of  Voltaire,  has  more  lately  found  a  coun- 
terpart in  the  theory  of  a  celebrated  philosopher,  who  ex- 
plains every  thing  upon  a  principle  of  which  Leibnitz  had 
no  idea,  who  thinks  that  the  only  end  for  which  the  external 
world  was  created,  was  to  afford  the  spirit  room  to  exercise 
and  develop  itself,  and  maintains  that  the  worse  the  world 
is,  the  better  is  it  adapted  to  serve  this  purpose.  Neither  this 
Spartan,  nor  that  elaborate  solution,  is  satisfactory  either  to 
feeling  or  to  philosophy. 

In  the  Leibnitzian  ideas  concerning  space  and  time,  we 
have  a  remarkable  evidence  how  entirely  the  views  of  the 
truest  and  highest  philosophy  were  at  that  period  forgotten. 
The  philosophy  of  antiquity  recognized  in  time  and  place  an 
endless  theatre  for  the  display  of  the  eternal,  and  of  the  liv- 
ing pulsation  of  eternal  love.  By  the  contemplation  of  such 
things,  however  imperfect  and  inadequate,  the  natural,  even 
the  merely  sensible  man,  was  affected  with  a  stupendous  fee- 
ing of  admiration  well  calculated  to  prepare  the  way  for  re- 
ligious thoughts.  It  extended  and  ennobled  his  soul  to  re- 
gard, in  such  a  manner  as  this,  the  past,  the  present,  and  the 
future.  But  Leibnitz  saw  in  time  and  space  nothing  but  the 
arrangement  of  contemporary  or  consecutive  incidents.  So 
apt  are  deadening  and  insignificant  ideas  to  creep  into  the 


348  GERMAN  LANGUAGE  AND  POETRY. 

place  of  living  and  just  feeling,  in  all  that  is  most  fitted  to 
elevate  man  above  the  vv^orld  of  the  senses.  The  philosophy 
of  Leibnitz  was  brought  into  fashion  in  Germany,  and  es- 
tablished in  the  schools,  chiefly  by  means  of  Wolf;  this  cir- 
cumstance is  sufficient  to  characterize  it.  A  sect  which  lays 
hold  of  active  life,  is  judged  by  the  direction  which  it  pur- 
sues, and  the  consequences  which  it  produces.  But  the 
spirit  of  a  sect  confined  to  schools  soon  becomes  a  mere  being 
of  formality :  Aristotle,  Descartes,  Leibnitz,  or  Kant,  is  called 
the  master,  and  the  ideas  are  said  to  be  his,  but  in  truth  they 
are  no  longer  ideas  as  they  were  in  him ;  they  are  mere 
formulas.  Germany,  nevertheless,  has  to  thank  this  scholas- 
tic system  for  preventing,  or  at  least  checking,  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  yet  more  dangerous  sectarian  spirit  of  the  atheis- 
tical philo.sophy  of  the  senses ;  and  after  all,  the  pedantry 
was  not  of  long  duration.  Leibnitz  himself,  although  he 
wrote  mostly  in  Latin  and  French,  gave  quite  a  new  spring 
to  the  study  of  the  German  language,  history,  and  antiqui- 
ties; and  even  Wolf's  German  writings  were  of  considerable 
service  to  the  language.  They  were  followed  by  some  who, 
although  belonging  to  their  school,  had  both  originality  of 
thought,  and  power  of  writing ;  and  these,  along  with  a  few 
better  poets  than  had  lately  appeared,  first  brought  our  lan- 
jTuasre  out  of  the  state  of  barbarism  into  which  it  had  fallen. 
They  prepared  the  way  for  Klopstock,  who  arose  in  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  and  became  the  founder  of  a  new 
epoch,  the  master  and  father  of  the  present  literature  of  Ger- 
many. 

But  before  I  proceed  to  depict  Klopstock,  I  must  direct 
your  eyes  to  a  short  review  of  the  period  which  intervened 
between  the  old  and  new  literature  of  our  country.  The 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  produced  indeed  few  great 
German  writers,  but  these  few  are,  on  account  of  the  rarity, 
the  more  worthy  of  our  attention.  I  have  already  explained 
in  what  way  the  chivalrous  poetry  and  art  of  the  middle 
age  were  lost  during  the  controversies  of  the  sixteenth,  and 
how  our  language  itself  became  corrupted  during  the  long 
continued  civil  wars  by  which  the  internal  peace  of  our 
country  was  so  cruelly  agitated  and  convulsed.  There  was 
one  instrument  by  which  the  influx  of  barbarism  was  op- 
posed, and  one  treasure  which  made  up  for  what  had  been 


Luther's  version  of  the  bible.  349 

lost — I  mean  the  German  translation  of  the  Bible.  It  is 
well  known  to  you  that  all  true  philologists  regard  this  as 
the  standard  and  model  of  classical  expression  in  the  High 
Dutch  language;  and  that  not  only  Klopstock,  but  many  •; 
other  writers  of  the  first  rank,  have  fashioned  their  style,  and 
selected  their  phrases  according  to  the  rules  of  this  version. 
It  is  worthy  of  your  notice,  that  in  no  other  modern  language  * 
have  so  many  Biblical  words  and  phrases  come  into  the  use 
of  common  life,  as  in  ours.  I  perfectly  agree  with  these 
writers  who  consider  this  circumstance  as  a  fortunate  one ; 
and  I  believe,  that  from  it  has  been  derived  not  a  little  of 
that  power,  life,  and  simplicity,  by  which  I  think  the  best 
German  writers  are  distinguished  from  all  other  moderns. 
The  Catholic  as  well  as  the  modern  Protestant  scholar,  have 
many  things  to  find  fault  with  in  this  translation ;  but  these 
after  all  regard  only  individual  passages  wherein  Luther 
erred,  either  by  writing  in  the  spirit  of  his  own  sect  and  con- 
trary to  the  old  doctrines  of  the  Christian  church,  or  from  a 
want  of  knowledge  in  history,  physics,  or  geography.  In 
these  later  times  we  have  witnessed  an  attempt  to  render  a 
new  and  rational  translation  of  the  Bible  an  instrument  of  « 
propagating  the  doctrines  of  the  illuminati ;  and  we  have 
seen  this  too  much  in  the  hands  even  of  Catholics  themselves. 
But  the  instant  this  folly  had  blown  over,  we  returned  with 
increased  affection  to  the  excellent  old  version  of  Lutherr— "'*~ 
Luther  himself  has  not  indeed  the  whole  merit  of  producing 
it.  He  only  selected  the  best  parts  of  translations  existing 
before  his  time,  and  he  was  assisted  in  this  labour  by  several 
of  his  friends,  in  particular  by  the  indefatigable  Melancthon. 
We  owe  to  him,  nevertheless,  the  highest  gratitude  for  plac- 
ing in  our  hands  this  most  noble  and  manly  model  of  Ger- 
man expression.  Even  in  his  own  writings  he  displays  a 
most  original  eloquence  surpassed  by  feAV  names  that  occur 
in  the  whole  history  of  literature.  He  had,  indeed,  all  those 
properties  which  render  a  man  fit  to  be  a  revolutionary  orator. 
This  revolutionary  eloquence  is  manifest,  not  only  in  his 
half-political  and  business  writings,  such  as  the  Address  to 
the  Nobility  of  the  German  Nation,  but  in  all  the  works 
which  he  has  left  behind  him.  In  almost  the  whole  of  them 
we  perceive  the  marks  of  mighty  internal  conflict.  Two 
worlds  appear  to  be  contending  for  the  mastery  over  the 

30 


/ 


850  INFLUENCE  OF  LUTHER. 

mighty  soul  of  this  man  so  favoured  by  God  and  nature. 
Throughout  all  his  writings  there  prevails  a  struggle  be- 
tween light  and  darkness,  faith  and  passion,  God  and  him- 
self. The  choice  which  he  made — the  use  to  which  he  de- 
voted his  majestic  genius — these  are  subjects  upon  which  it 
is  even  now  quite  impossible  for  me  to  speak  so  as  to  please 
you  all.  For  myself  I  am  free  to  acknowledge,  that  I  can 
never  regard  either  his  writings  or  his  life,  except  with  some 
portion  of  that  compassion  which  is  due  to  a  great  nature 
led  astray  by  over-confidence  in  its  o\vn  vigour.  As  to  the 
intellectual  power  and  greatness  of  Luther,  abstracted  from 
all  consideration  of  the  uses  to  which  he  applied  them,  I 
think  there  are  few  even  of  his  own  disciples  who  appreciate 
him  highly  enough.  His  coadjutors  were  mostly  mere 
scholars,  indolent  and  enlightened  men  of  the  common  order. 
It  was  upon  him  and  his  soul  that  the  fate  of  Europe  de- 
pended.    He  was  the  man  of  his  age  and  his  nation. 

Luther  was  thoroughly  a  popular  writer.  No  country 
in  Europe  can  boast  of  so  many  remarkable,  comprehensive, 
powerful,  and  extraordinary  writers  for  the  common  people, 
as  Germany.  However  much  the  higher  orders  of  Germa- 
ny were  inferior,  or  however  lately  they  came  up  to  those 
of  France,  England,  and  Italy,  it  is  certain  that  the  common 
people  of  none  of  these  countries  has  displayed  so  much  pro- 
foundness of  intellect,  and  natural  power  of  mind,  as  that  of 
our  own  nation.  It  is  an  old  saying,  that  the  power  of 
kings  is  given  by  God;  it  is  an  equally  old  one,  and  one 
quite  as  worthy  of  being  kept  in  mind,  that  the  voice  of  the 
people  is  the  voice  of  God.  Both  are  clear,  perfect,  and 
true  :  wo  to  those  who  disregard,  or  would  mislead  this  ora- 
cle of  the  Deity !  They  are  much  to  be  pitied  who  con- 
ceive that  they  are  capable,  by  the  tricks  of  empty  and  vain 
politics,  of  leading  the  people  entirely  according  to  their 
own  selfish  and  unworthy  purposes  and  desires.  The  peo- 
ple is  wiser  than  they  imagine,  and  far  wiser  than  them- 
selves. The  people  sees  through  their  tricks,  and  will  not 
easily  be  deceived.  But  of  all  men  they  surely  are  guihy 
of  the  greatest  crime  who  would  make  use  of  the  natural 
power  of  our  people  for  the  purposes  of  destruction  and  con- 
vulsion. This  strength  must  indeed  be  appalling,  should  it 
ever  be  directed  by  any  other  guides  than  those  it  has  as  yet 


THE  TEUTONIC  PHILOSOPHY.  351 

obeyed, — obedience  to  the  precepts,  and  faith  in  the  doctrines 
of  religion.  Narrow  must  their  judgment  be  who  conceive 
that  this  power  is  extinct,  because  it  is  seldom  visible.  It  is 
the  inheritance  of  our  ancestors,  and  can  never  be  thrown 
away ;  but  like  many  of  the  other  hidden  powers  of  nature, 
it  is  too  great  to  be  often  manifested. 

The  popular  writing  of  northern  Germany  was  by  no 
means  confined  to  religious  subjects,  (as  in  Luther's  works,) 
but  embraced  also  poetry  and  philosophy.  I  shall  for  the 
present  mention  only  two  of  the  most  remarkable  authors, 
the  celebrated  Meistersanger  of  Nürnberg,  and  that  Chris- 
tian visionary  who  was  so  much  celebrated  throughout  Eu- 
rope, about  the  time  of  the  thirty  years'  war  under  the  name 
of  the  Teutonic  philosopher... 

In  popular  songs  and  poems  the  possessions  of  Germany 
are  abundant.  The  popular  poetry  is  generally  of  two 
kinds ;  it  consists  in  part  of  songs,  solitary  fragments  of  a 
departed  age  of  heroism  and  chivalry,  whose  recollections 
have  been  disturbed  and  broken  by  the  revolutions  of  exter- 
nal events,  or  have  become  exploded  in  consequence  of  the 
gradual  change  in  the  modes  of  our  social  life  and  ideas ; 
in  part  of  the  productions  of  the  vulgar  themselves, — and 
this  is  the  most  striking  division  of  the  popular  poetry  of 
Germany.  The  master  of  Nürnberg  was  an  artificer  in 
poetry  as  well  as  in  common  life.  He  is  however  a  writer 
full  of  power  and  fancy ;  he  possesses  abundance  of  wit  and 
shrewdness,  and  if  we  are  to  compare  him  with  the  early 
writers  of  other  languages,  he  is  I  think  more  inventive  than 
Chaucer,  more  rich  than  Marot,  and  more  poetical  than 
either.  In  regard  to  our  language,  his  works  form  a  trea- 
sure, of  which  no  proper  use  has  as  yet  been  made. 

The  same  remark  may  be  applied  to  Jacob  Böhme,  that 
Teutonic  philosopher,  who  is  so  much  ridiculed  by  the  ge- 
neral race  of  literary  men.  These  are  themselves  sensible 
that  they  understand  neither  the  good  nor  the  bad  that  is  in 
his  writings ;  but  they  are  ignorant  that  they  know  abso- 
lutely nothing  either  respecting  the  man  himself,  or  the  re- 
lation in  which  he  stood  to  his  contemporaries.  I  have,  on 
a  former  occasion,  shewn  you  what  my  opinion  is  respect- 
ing the  efifects  of  philosophy  being  cultivated  by  the  common 
people,  and  neglected  by  the  higher  orders  of  a  nation.  Such, 


352  JACOB  BÖHME  AND  OPITZ. 

however,  was  actually  the  case  at  that  period,  both  in  Pro- 
testant Germany  and  in  England.  Jacob  Böhme  is  com- 
monly called  a  dreamer,  and  it  is  very  true,  that  in  his  writ- 
ings there  may  be  more  marks  of  an  ardent  imagination 
than  of  a  sound  judgment.  But  we  cannot  at  least  deny 
this  strange  man  the  praise  of  a  very  poetical  fancy.  If  we 
should  consider  him  merely  as  a  poet,  and  compare  him 
with  those  other  Christian  poets,  who  have  handled  subjects 
connected  with  the  supernatural  world,  with  Klopstock,  with 
Milton,  or  even  with  Dante,  we  shall  find  that  he  rivals  the 
best  of  them,  in  fulness  of  fancy  and  depth  of  feeling,  and 
that  he  falls  little  below  them,  even  in  regard  to  individual 
beauties,  and  poetical  expression.  Whatever  defects  may 
be  found  in  the  philosophy  of  Jacob  Böhme,  the  historian 
of  German  literature  can  never  pass  over  his  name  in  si- 
lence. In  few  works  of  any  period  have  the  strength  and 
richness  of  our  language  been  better  displayed  than  in  his. 
His  language  possesses  indeed  a  charm  of  nature,  simplicity, 
and  unsought  vigour,  which  we  should  look  for  in  vain,  in 
the  tongue  which  we  now  speak,  enriched  as  it  is  by  the 
immense  importation  of  foreign  terms,  and  the  invented 
phraseologies  of  our  late  philosophers. 

The  permanent  effects  produced  by  the  thirty  years'  war 
upon  our  literature  were  extremely  hurtful ;  but  there  is 
no  doubt  that,  while  it  actually  raged,  it  operated  as  an  awak- 
ener  and  animator  of  German  intellect.  The  Silesian 
Opitz  arose  in  the  midst  of  it,  and  gave  to  our  language  and 
poetry  a  direction  which  has  since  found  many  imitators. 
His  immediate  models  were  sought  from  Holland,  a  coun- 
try which  at  that  time  possessed  a  Hugo  GjXktius,  which 
was  not  only  the  most  learned  and  enlightened  of  all  Pro- 
testant states,  but  also  rich  and  cultivated  in  its  poetry,  and 
abounding  in  vernacular  tragedies  composed  after  the  an- 
tique model,  a  considerable  time  before  the  great  French 
tragedians  were  fostered  in  the  court  of  Lewis  XIV.  Yet 
the  excellence  of  Opitz  is  quite  independent  of  what  he  bor- 
rowed from  any  foreign  literature,  from  the  Dutch  tragedies, 
and  the  pastoral  romances  of  the  Spaniards.  Even  his  dra- 
matic attempts,  free  translations,  or  imitations  of  the  Greek 
and  Italian  theatres,  have  not  produced  any  effect.  The 
truth  iSj  that  in  the  very  best  and  most  original  of  his  lyri- 


THE  WORKS  OF  FLEMMING  AND  OTHERS.  353 

cal,  miscellaneous,  and  didactic  poems,  we  should  always 
regard  more  what  he  was  fitted  by  nature  to  be,  what  he 
desired,  and  felt,  and  aspired  to,  than  what  he  really  was. 
He  is  commonly  called  the  father  of  German  poetry ;  it  ap- 
pears to  me  that,  at  least  since  Klopstock,  few  of  the  sons 
have  been  grateful  enough  to  cultivate  much  acquaintance 
with  this  parent.  If  any  man  was  ever  formed  by  nature 
to  be  a  heroic  poet,  this  was  Opitz.  He  felt  this,  and  wish- 
ed to  be  the  heroic  poet  of  tHe  German  nation.  But  his  life 
was  spent  amidst  the  perplexities  and  agitations  of  a  tumul- 
tuous period,  and  he  died  in  early  manhood  before  he  had 
time  to  complete  either  his  purposes  or  his  poetry.  Through- 
out all  his  works,  imperfect  as  they  are,  there  break  forth 
flashes  and  emanations  of  that  course  of  thought  and  great- 
ness of  soul  which  create  a  heroic  poet ;  and  even  in  regard 
to  language,  those  noble  sentiments  and  strong  thoughts  of 
■vOpitz  are  in  general  expressed  with  an  artless  simplicity 
and  naivete,  which,  I  think,  have  not  since  been  equalled. 
His  style  is  superior  to  that  of  Klopstock. 

Next  to  Opitz,  the  most  distinguished  of  the  Silesian  poets 
of  this  period  is  Flemming.  His  poetry  is  intensely  per- 
sonal ;  it  is  filled  with  the  inspiration  of  his  own  friendships, 
passions,  and  loves.  His  life  was  worthy  of  his  being  so 
celebrated ;  he  travelled  through  the  then  unknown  interior 
of  Russia  into  Persia,  and  has  described  all  that  he  saw  or 
experienced  during  this  interesting  journey,  with  the  most 
glowing  feeling,  and  a  truly  oriental  splendour  of  fancy.  In 
style,  however,  he  is  quite  inferior  to  Opitz.  It  is  much  to 
be  regretted,  that  both  of  these  men  were,  after  all,  or  were 
at  least  held  to  be,  not  national,  but  provincial  poets,  not 
Germans,  but  Silesians.  After  the  unfortunate  civil  war, 
whose  flames,  fed  by  the  participation  or  policy  of  the  half 
of  Europe,  wasted  and  devoured  our  country  for  thirty  years 
after  the  still  more  miserable  peace  of  1648,  the  strength  of 
the  German  nation  was  broken,  and  German  poetry  shared 
in  the  general  decline.  Its  substance  and  life  were  fled,  and 
it  soon  degenerated  into  a  mere  artificial  and  fantastic  display 
of  insignificant  thoughts  upon  worthless  subjects.  The  first 
introducer  of  the  false  taste  was  Hofl^manswaldau,  but  it  was 
rendered  general  by  the  more  powerful  talents  of  Lohen- 
stein.    This  period,  from  1648  to  the  middle  of  last  century, 

30* 


354  THE  SILESIAN  SCHOOL. 

was  our  proper  age  of  barbarism,  a  sort  of  division  and  cha- 
otic interregnum  in  tlie  history  of  German  literature.  Our 
language  hesitated  between  a  species  of  would-be  French 
and  wavering  German,  and  was,  with  all  this  weakness,  full 
of  affectation  and  artifice.  Even  in  a  political  point  of  view, 
the  most  degraded  and  unfortunate  period  of  our  history  is 
that  immediately  subsequent  to  the  peace  of  Westphalia. 
With  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  power  of 
Germany  began  again  to  revive.  Austria  again  attained 
the  summit  of  strength  and  glory,  some  of  the  first  thrones 
in  Europe  were  ascended  by  princes  of  German  houses,  and 
one  of  them  founded  in  Germany  itself,  a  new  and  splendid 
monarchy.  All  these  circumstances,  particularly  when 
taken  together,  could  scarcely  fail  to  produce  a  reviving  and 
quickening  effect  on  the  intellect,  language,  and  manners  of 
our  country.  Many  princes  were  compelled,  even  by  con- 
siderations of  mere  political  interest,  to  become  the  patrons 
of  science.  These  causes  did  operate,  but  not  speedily;  they 
were  opposed  by  many  serious  obstacles ;  above  all,  by  the 
deep-rooted  corruption  which  had  extended  itself  through  all 
the  German  notions  of  art  and  style.  The  first  in  thought 
and  language  of  the  better  lyrical  poets  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  resembled  in  a  great  measure  their  predecessors  of 
the  seventeenth,  and  devoted  themselves  entirely  to  the  occa- 
sional poetry  of  gallantry,  court,  festival,  and  panegyric. 
Those  of  them  who  paid  the  greatest  attention  to  style, 
Hagedorn,  and  after  him  Utz,  were  more  addicted  to  imita- 
tion, and  certainly  very  happy  imitation,  of  French  and 
English  poets,  than  to  the  open  expression  of  their  own 
feelings  and  passions.  Those  who,  by  a  higher  tone  of  in- 
spiration, like  Haller,  or  by  a  more  graceful  and  elegant 
fertility,  like  Gleim,  are  most  deserving  of  the  name  of  poets, 
are,  in  respect  of  language,  always  careless,  frequently  cor- 
rupt. At  the  same  time,  they  must  be  regarded,  even  in 
respect  to  language  and  its  construction  alone,  as  great  and 
meritorious,  when  compared  with  the  state  of  barbarism  into 
which  the  taste  and  judgment  of  the  time  immediately  pre- 
ceding them  had  fallen.  They  must  receive  still  greater 
admiration,  when  we  reflect  on  the  unfavourable  circum- 
stances of  some  of  their  lives.  Several  of  these  first  revisers 
of  the  German  language  and  poetry  died  in  very  early  life ; 


INFLUENCE  OF  FREDERICK  II.  355 

such  was  the  fate  of  Kleist,  who  was  perhaps  the  greatest 
genius  of  them  all,  of  Kronenk,  and  of  Elias  Schlegel ; 
others  devoted  their  chief  attention  to  the  bustle  of  active 
life,  or  passed  into  foreign  countries  and  forgot  their  destiny. 
They  all  felt  the  want  of  a  point  of  union,  and  looked  for  it 
in  vain  from  the  youthful  hands  of  Frederick  the  Second. 
It  is  common  of  late  to  justify  the  conduct  of  this  monarch, 
by  asserting  that  at  the  time  when  he  arose,  the  language 
and  poetry  of  his  country  was  really  in  such  a  state,  that 
they  could  not  possibly  be  viewed  with  any  thing  but  con- 
tempt and  aversion  by  one  of  so  much  talent  as  he  possessed. 
There  is,  however,  no  foundation  in  fact,  for  such  a  plea : 
what  might  not  have  been  done  for  German  literature  by  a 
prince,  in  whose  time  (and  some  of  them  too  in  whose  own 
dominions)  there  arose  and  flourished  such  men  as  Klop- 
stock,  Winkelman,  Kant,  and  Lessing?  Where,  in  any 
age,  could  better  materials  have  been  found,  and  what  were 
the  foreign  favourites  of  Frederick  (Voltaire  alone  excepted) 
when  placed  by  the  side  of  these  great  resuscitators  of  sci- 
ence and  art  ?  What  was  a  Maupertuis,  or  a  La  Metrie  ? — 
the  mere  mob  of  French  literati.  We  may  well  excuse 
Klopstock  for  expressing,  with  somewhat  of  keenness  of 
personal  resentment,  his  indignation  for  the  unmerited  con- 
tempt poured  upon  the  language  and  literature  of  his 
country.  He  felt  and  expressed  this  with  bitter  severity, 
when  he  instituted  a  comparison  between  Frederick  and 
Caesar.  In  the  time  of  Julius,  more  Greek,  good  bad  or 
indifferent,  was  written  at  Rome,  than  French  in  Germany 
during  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  Roman 
language  possessed  at  that  period  as  few  classical  Avorks  as 
the  German  did  before  1750.  And  yet  Ceesar  thought  it 
well  worth  his  while  to  devote  the  most  careful  attention  to 
his  mother  tongue,  nay,  to  be  himself,  a  Roman  philologer 
and  Grammarian.  And  it  was  thus  that  he  made  himself 
one  of  the  first  of  orators  and  of  writers,  distinctions  which 
no  man  can  ever  reach  who  makes  use  of  a  foreign  dialect. 
But  upon  the  whole,  we  should  perhaps  scarcely  regret  the 
want  of  such  an  union  of  German  writers  as  Frederick  had 
it  in  his  power  to  effect.  Individuals  would  indeed  have 
written  better  and  more  easily,  but  it  may  be  that  the  litera- 
ture as  a  whole  might  have  suffered,  that  it  might  have 


356  THE  GENIUS  OF  KLOPSTOCK. 

been  narrowed  in  its  spirit  and  comprehension,  and  become 
the  affair  of  a  province  rather  than  of  the  whole  German 
people.  We  should  have  paid  dearly  for  a  somewhat  more 
rapid  development  by  sacrificing  what  constitute  at  this  mo- 
ment the  chief  excellence  of  our  w-riters — riches  and  free- 
dom. But  the  whole  of  the  argument  in  defence  of  Freder- 
ick proceeds  upon  a  wrong  view  of  the  subject.  If  kings 
are  to  defer  their  patronage  of  national  literature  till  such 
time  as  there  are  in  the  country  abundance  of  elegant  and 
perfect  writers,  the  utmost  which  it  can  be  in  their  power  to 
effect,  must  be  the  establishment  of  some  tame  and  unprofit- 
able academy.  The  monarch  who  is  ambitious  to  befriend 
and  guide  the  intellect  of  his  people,  must  foster  and  cherish 
talents  not  yet  completely  developed,  and  furnish  young  men 
with  the  instruments  and  opportunities  of  distinction.  We 
may  pardon  the  zeal  of  Klopstock,  for  he  had  in  his  own  person 
abundant  experience  of  the  neglect  of  princes.  He  was  con- 
scious to  himself  of  a  genius  capable  of  diffusing  new  spirit 
and  life  not  over  poetry  alone,  but  over  all  the  departments 
of  literature.  The  evil  influence  of  Voltaire  over  France 
was  not  more  extensive  than  the  good  influence  of  Klop- 
stock might  have  been  over  Germany,  had  he  been  supplied 
with  room,  occasion,  means,  and  instruments  worthy  of  his 
genius. 

Klopstock  stood  conspicuous,  and  almost  alone  in  the 
German  literature  of  his  time,  in  respect  of  his  intensely 
national  feelings,  feelings  with  which  few  of  his  contempo- 
raries sympathized,  and  which  still  fewer  could  understand. 
It  Avas  his  ambition  to  transfer  these  German  feelings  into 
poetry.  With  the  Messiad  the  new  literature  of  our  country 
may  be  said  to  begin ;  so  immeasurable  have  been  the  bene- 
fits derived  from  it,  particularly  in  respect  to  style  and  expres- 
sion, although  the  poem  is  now  admired  chiefly  upon  trusty 
or  has  not  at  least  become  a  work  of  true  power  and  living 
feeling  in  our  hands.  The  plan  labours  under  the  same 
disadvantages  which  I  have  described  as  inseparable  from 
all  poems  of  this  species.  Klopstock's  most  successful  poe-— 
try  is  that  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  elegy.  Every  gradation, 
blending,  and  depth  of  elegiac  feeling  is  handled  by  him 
with  the  power  and  ease  of  a  master ;  however  far  he  pur- 
sues the  stream  of  his  melancholy  reflections,   he  never 


HIS  IDEA  OF  A  NEW  POETRY.  357 

doubts,  nor  needs  to  doubt,  that  his  readers  will  willingly 
follow  him,  and  dehver  up  their  spirits  to  his  control. 
He  calls  forth  the  most  melting  of  our  sympathies  even 
for  a  fallen  spirit — Abbadona.  There  is  another  element 
which  enters  as  largely,  but  far  less  happily  into  the  com- 
position of  his  poetry.  In  prose  he  is  a  writer  who  errs 
by  being  too  sententious,  brief,  and  epigrammatic;  but  in 
poetry  he  indulges  in  a  verbose  and  eleborate  species  of 
rhetoric,  which  often  destroys  in  a  very  great  measure  the 
effect  of  his  feeling.  Both  Milton  and  Virgil  are  charge- 
able with  the  same  defect,  but  Klopstock  has  carried  it 
much  farther  than  either  of  them.  We  may  allow  him  to 
assume  that  his  heavenly  personages  make  use  of  human 
nay,  of  German  language,  but  we  can  with  difficulty  sup- 
pose that  beings  of  so  elevated  a  nature  can  waste  their  time 
in  such  frivolous  and  long-winded  conversations  as  occur  in 
the  Messiad. 

That  neither  the  nation  nor  the  poet  himself  was  satisfied 
with  the  Messiad  as  a  whole,  is  sufficiently  proved  by  the 
very  great  dissimilarity  of  the  first  and  second  halves  of  the 
poem. 

There  lay  in  the  spirit  of  Klopstock,  a  lofty  idea  of  a  new 
and  eminently  German  poetry.  His  mighty  hand  put  an 
end  to  the  greatest  reproach  of  our  "literature ;  he  demon- 
strated that  Christianity  on  the  one  hand,  and  Gothic  mytho- 
logy and  antiquity  on  the  other,  must  be  the  main  elements 
of  all  new  European  poetry  and  inspiration.  In  his  time 
the  scholars  of  Denmark  were  zealously  employed  in  bring- 
ing into  notice  the  northern  mythology  and  the  Edda ;  and 
Klopstock  himself  was  willing  to  take  a  part  in  their  la- 
bours. But  the  small  lyrical  poems  and  odes  by  which 
he  attempted  to  promote  their  views  were  not  the  proper 
means  for  accomplishing  it.  The  Danish  poets  were  wiser 
in  adopting  the  department  of  narrative  and  descriptive 
poetry 

To  the  Herman  of  Klopstock,  next  to  the  Messiad,  his 
most  considerable  poem,  the  same  general  remarks  may  be 
applied  which  I  have  already  made  concerning  the  elegiac 
spirit  of  all  his  poetry,  and  the  abuse  of  rhetorical  acuteness. 
As  a  drama  is  calculated  for  a  future  and  ideal  theatre  not 
for  the  actual  theatre  either  of  his  time  or  of  ours,  which 


358  THE  POETRY  OF  KLOPSTOCK. 

seems  to  reg-ard  with  a  favourable  eye  all  manner  of  pleasure 
and  purpose  rather  than  the  poetical.  Klopstock  seized  and 
felt  only  the  two  extreme  points  of  German  poetry  ;  he  over- 
looked all  that  lies  in  the  middle  between  the  Christian  and 
the  northern,  and  all  that  is  produced  by  the  blending-  of 
these  two  elements, — the  whole  middle  age,  the  thousand  or 
twelve  hundred  years,  which  intervened  between  Attila  and 
that  peace  of  Westphalia,  of  which,  so  much  against  our 
wishes,  we  are  compelled  to  make  an  epoch  both  in  litera- 
ture and  in  history.  He  omitted,  therefore,  to  survey  the 
region  of  all  others  most  fruitful  and  most  obvious,  the  only 
one  upon  which  poetry  ever  can  be  established  so  as  to  be- 
come a  matter  of  historical  and  national  influence  in  our 
eyes.  This  great  blank  which  Klopstock  left,  many  sub- 
sequent writers  have  attempted  to  fill  up ;  particularly  Bod- 
laer  as  a  scholar,  and  Wieland  as  a  poet.  Bodmer  was  pas- 
sionately fond  of  the  old  romantic  chivalrous  poetry,  and  was 
the  first  who  brought  the  riches  of  Germany  in  that  depart- 
ment into  light ;  although  he  adopted  a  method  which  was 
ill  calculated  to  hasten  the  effects  he  wished  to  produce.  The 
poetry  of  Wieland  was  entirely  devoted  to  the  romantic, 
which  had  been  left  untouched  by  Klopstock.  It  is  true, 
that  a  historical  romantic  poem,  after  the  manner  of  Tasso, 
not  perhaps  founded  on  the  Crusades,  but  on  some  other  of 
the  rich  poetical  materials  of  the  middle  age,  might  have 
been  a  better  and  more  effectual  instrument,  than  an  entirely 
fanciful  and  playful  subject,  such  as  that  of  Oberon.  But 
notwithstanding  all  this,  and  in  spite  of  many  ahsurd  modern 
things  which  he  has  interwoven,  the  services  of  Wieland 
have  been  eminently  useful  in  recovering  romantic  feelings. 
It  is  a  shame  and  a  pity  that  one  who  had  recreated  in  so 
glorious  a  manner  the  minstrelsy  of  the  Provencial  period, 
should  have  so  soon  laid  poetry  aside.  This  is  the  greatest 
reproach  which  can  be  made  to  the  poet  of  Oberon,  that  he 
who,  had  he  acted  wisely,  might  have  become  the  German 
Ariosto,  or  the  rival  of  the  Italian  one,  should  have  stopped 
to  be  the  imitator  of  such  a  prose  writer  as  Crebillon.  In 
prose  it  is  quite  evident  that  his  style  and  expressions  are 
vastly  inferior  to  what  they  appear  in  his  verses.  I  believe 
that  when  all  his  Greek  romances  are  forgotten,  the  fame  of 
Wieland  will  still  be  supported  by  his  Oberon. 


THE  GENIUS  OF  GESSNER.  359 

Of  the  other  poets  of  the  first  generation,  the  most  original 
is  Gessner.  But  he  deals  in  a  species  of  poetry  too  remote 
from  actual  life,  and  too  devoid  of  any  precise  species  of  my- 
thology. He  wanders  therefore  in  a  world  of  shades,  and 
every  thing  assumes  in  his  hands  the  appearance  of  a  tame 
uniformity.  A  contempt  of  rhyme  and  metre  may  harmo- 
nize well  enough  with  such  a  sort  of  poetry,  but  it  also  pro- 
motes and  cherishes  its  most  characteristic  errors  and  defects. 

In  one  respect  alone  the  doctrine  and  example  of  Kl  op- 
stock  operated  unfavourably  upon  the  German  language. 
In  order  to  recall  a  language  out  of  a  situation  of  entire  cor- 
ruption, few  better  means  can  be  selected  than  the  introduc- 
tion of  severe,  eleborate,  and  foreign  forms  of  writing.  These 
at  first  indeed  produce  the  appearance  of  restraint  and  diffi- 
culty, but  they  destroy  the  prevalent  absurdities  of  careless- 
ness. The  ancient  hexameter  measure  accords  well  with 
our  language,  and  ours  is  the  only  modern  language  in 
which  it  is  tolerable.  But  with  whatever  excellent  effects 
the  introduction  of  foreign  forms  may  be  attended,  they 
should  be  still  regarded  merely  as  exercises.  He  who  would 
create  a  truly  national  poem  must  choose  a  national  and  fa- 
miliar measure.  The  accents  of  a  foreign  metre  do  not  come 
upon  the  ear  with  the  effect  of  domestic  influence,  or  fasten 
themselves  in  the  memory  and  heart  of  the  readers.  The 
hexameter,  when  carelessly  executed,  displeases  scholars, 
and  when  written  with  accuracy,  appears  monotous  and 
wearisome  to  ordinary  readers.  The  Messiad  is  prevented 
by  its  import  from  becoming  an  universal  favourite.  But 
for  this  I  should  consider  the  measure  in  which  it  is  written 
as  the  great  cause  of  its  unpopularity. 

It  was  a  great  error  in  an  illustrious  poet,  such  as  Klop- 
stock,  to  hate  and  banish  rhyme.  It  is  well  that  he  has  not 
suceeeded  in  all  that  he  wished  to  effect.  It  was  a  most  ab- 
surd thing  to  suppose  that  rhyme,  a  custom  which  has  been 
familiarised  to  German  ears  by  nine  hundred  or  a  thousand 
years,  and  which  has  become  entvvisted  among  the  very  roots 
of  our  language,  could  be  thrown  off  with  so  much  ease. 
Besides  rhyme  is  not  merely  an  adventitious  habit,  it  is 
founded  on  the  very  nature  of  Teutonic  speech.  Klopstock 
conceived  that  the  most  ancient  German  songs  and  poems 
were  rhymatical,  but  without  rhyme :  But  he  was  mistaken. 


360  THE  PHILOLOGY  OF  WIELAND. 

It  is  true  that  they  are  without  that  regular  rhyme  at  the  end 
of  lines  which  we  now  use,  but  they  all  possess  that  species 
of  repetition  of  sound,  which  is  a-like  observable  in  the  Islan- 
dic,  Anglo-Saxon,  Scandinavian,  old  English,  and  old  Saxon 
poets,  which  goes  by  the  name  of  alliteration,  and  of  which 
even  in  the  latest  poetry  of  Germany  and  England,  the  tra- 
ces are  abundantly  manifest.  The  transition  from  this  kind 
of  rhyme  to  ours  was  a  very  easy  one.  Rhyme  is  not  in- 
deed so  necessary  in  our  language  as  in  the  unmusical  one 
of  France,  but  it  is  intermingled  with  the  very  foundation  of 
our  speech,  and  has  entered  long  since  into  our  pronuncia- 
tion. Wieland  deserves  much  praise  for  restoring  rhyme, 
and  putting  an  end  to  that  mania  for  blank  endings  and  un- 
satisfactory metres,  which  are  introduced  by  Klopstock, 
which  was  tolerated  in  him,  but  utterly  disgusting  in  the 
hands  of  his  imitators. 

Wieland's  love  of  philological  pursuits  led  him  sometimes 
into  bigoted  paradox,  and  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  a 
much  greater  philologer  than  he  was — Adelung.  I  am  far 
from  wishing  to  deny  the  merits  and  talents  of  this  great 
etymologist ;  but  in  our  time  it  is  no  longer  easy  to  overlook 
such  monstrous  absurdities  as  some  of  those  into  which  he 
fell;  that,  for  instance,  of  confining  the  pure  High  Dutch 
language  entirely  to  the  limits  of  the  old  Margravate  of 
Meissen,  and  of  despising  Klopstock,  who  was  the  first 
writer  among  his  own  contemporaries,  nay,  the  first  master 
of  the  German  language  which  had  then  appeared. 

How  relative  the  idea  of  a  golden  period  must  always  be, 
at  least  in  respect  to  our  literature,  we  have  now  had  many 
examples ;  Gottsched  fixed  it  in  the  age  of  Frederick  the 
first  King  of  Prussia,  and  talked  of  Besser,  Neukirch,  and 
Pietch,  as  if  they  were  to  be  in  German  literature,  what 
Virgil  is  in  the  Roman,  and  Corneille  and  Racine  in  the 
French.  These  writers  are  noAv,  however,  regarded  with-' 
out  any  of  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  Gottsched.  So 
convinced  was  he  that  human  intellect  and  German  poetry 
had  at  that  time  reached  their  summit,  that  he  persuaded 
himself  he  could  see  all  around  him  the  marks  of  a  decline, 
and  he  wrote  in  such  terms  as  these  in  the  year  1751,  the 
very  years  in  which  the  first  part  of  the  Messiad  was  pub- 
lished.    The  poets  whom  he  praised  so  highly  produced 


LESSING  AND  WINKLEMANN.  361 

only  odes  and  small  pieces ;  but  a  literature  can  never  reach 
its  perfection  till  it  can  boast  of  a  great  epic  poem  and  a 
great  history.  We  must  be  grateful  to  those  earlier  writers 
for  the  care  with  which  they  purified  our  language,  but  they 
were  only  preparing  the  way  for  the  more  stately  march  of 
those  who  came  after  them.  The  rapid  and  yet  gradual  im- 
provement which  occurred  in  our  last  century  is  indeed  a 
subject  which  cannot  be  considered  by  us  with  too  much 
satisfaction.  There  is  no  privileged  period  in  which  the 
great  change  took  place.  The  earliest  works  of  Lessing 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  written  in  the  same  language  of 
which  he  lived  to  make  use.  From  1750  till  1800,  a  con- 
stant succession  of  works  appeared  in  Germany,  of  which, 
although  few  are  perfect,  there  are  none  that  have  not  added 
both  strength  and  elegance  to  the  language  in  which  they 
are  composed. 

Although  the  whole  of  this  period  has  been  distmguished 
by  unintermitted  fertility,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  classing 
our  writers  into  their  different  generations.  Each  of  these 
generations  has  its  own  characteristic  excellencies  and  de- 
fects, derived  in  general  from  the  situation  or  circumstances 
of  the  time,  rather  than  from  the  genius  of  the  individuals. 

In  the  first  generation  I  class  those  writers  whose  deve- 
lopment and  first  exertions  occurred  between  the  years  1750 
and  1760.  My  limits  do  not  permit  me  to  ermmerate  the 
whole  even  of  those  who  are  entitled  to  great  respect.  I 
have  already  touched  on  the  most  celebrated.  But  I  can- 
not pass  over  in  silence  the  learned  Jesuit  Denis,  who  should 
be  remembered  with  peculiar  honour  by  my  audience,  be- 
cause it  was  he  who  first  introduced  into  the  literature  of 
Austria  that  pure  taste  which  had  been  created  in  the  north 
by  Klopstock. 

Of  prose  writers,  many  of  those  philosophers  whom  I 
shall  mention  hereafter  belong  to  the  first  generation ;  even 
Kant  himself,  if  we  consider  the  period  of  his  birth,  and  the 
nature  of  his  earliest  writings.  The  most  distinguished 
were  Lessing  and  Winkelmann. 

The  writers  of  this  period  exhibit  many  traces  of  the  un- 
fortunate state  into  which  German  literature  had  fallen  in 
the  age  immediately  preceding  their  own.  With  what  dif- 
ficulties Winklemann  had  to  contend  before  he  succeeded 

31 


362  kant's  philosophy. 

in  forming  his  rich  and  exquisite  style,  we  may  learn  from 
the  perusal  of  his  youthful  letters.  Kant's  mode  of  writing 
bears  innumerable  marks  of  long,  hard,  and  severe  labour. 
The  juvenile  works,  in  particular  the  poems,  of  Lessing^ 
should  be  considered  merely  as  a  tribute  paid  by  a  man  of 
genius  to  the  spirit  of  his  age.  Even  Klopstock,  however 
much  he  is  to  be  admired,  would,  without  doubt,  have  bee» 
far  better,  had  he  been  preceded  by  writers  of  great  eminence 
Such  were  the  injurious  consequences  produced  on  the 
writers  of  the  first  generation,  by  the  miserable  state  of  Ger- 
man literature  at  the  period  when  they  made  their  appear- 
ance. We  must  not  forget,  however,  that  the  difficulties 
with  which  they  had  to  contend  stimulated  them  to  exertions 
of  power  and  greatness  to  which  they  might  not  otherwise 
have  aspired.  They  were  obliged  to  concentrate  all  their 
powers  upon  one  point ;  this  was  the  case  with  Klopstock, 
Winkelmann,  and,  in  another  way,  with  Kant.  More  lately 
our  literature,  and  above  all  our  poetry,  has  lost  that  tone  of 
severe  simplicity  and  dignity  which  distinguished  the  best 
authors  of  the  first  g^ieration.  The  admirable  works  of 
Winkelmann  may  perhaps  have  been  very  instrumental  in 
producing  this  effect.  The  beautiful  and  the  tasteful  have 
become  too  exclusively  the  object  and  passion  of  our  writers. 
We  must  return  to  the  still  more  exalted  inspiration  of  na- 
tional feeling  and  religion. 


LECTURE  XVI. 


GENERAL   REVIEW — SECOND   GENERATION — GERMAN   CRITICISM — LESSING 

AND    HERDER LESSING  AS  A  PHILOSOPHER FREE-THINKING    AND   THE 

ILLUMINATI THE  EMPEROR  JOSEPH  THE    SECOND CHARACTER  OF  THE 

THIRD    GENERATION THE    PHILOSOPHY  OF  KANT GOETHE   AND  SCHIL- 

LER ANTICIPATION FICHTE    AND    TIECK TRUE    CHARACTER  OF  GER- 
MAN LITERATURE — CONCLUSION. 

Those  who  are  best  able  to  form  an  opinion  concerning 
the  modern  literature  of  Germany,  are  sensible  that  its  prin- 
cipal defect  is  its  want  of  harmony.  To  point  out  in  a 
general  way  where  this  harmony  should  be  sought,  and 
wherein  alone  it  may  be  found,  might  seem  perhaps  to  be 
no  very  difficult  task.  But  I  know  not  that  it  could  be  pro- 
ductive of  much  good  to  point  out  the  remote  termination, 
unless  we  could  accompany  this  with  some  directions  as  to 
the  way  which  must  lead  to  it,  some  warnings  concerning 
the  bye-paths  which  deflect  from  it,  the  obstacles  which  in- 
terrupt, and  the  dangers  which  surround  it.  Before  we  think 
of  solving  the  problem,  we  must  first  thoroughly  compre- 
hend it  in  all  its  extent  and  all  its  difficulty ;  we  must  disr 
cover  the  extremities  of  the  several  cords,  and  follow  them 
through  all  the  mazes  of  their  intertexture,  ere  we  need  hope 
to  loosen  the  Gordian  knot  of  our  literature. 

The  nearer  we  come  to  our  own  time,  the  more  am  I 
obliged  to  contract  the  extent  of  my  researches,  and  to  dwell 
less  upon  the  characters  of  individuals,  and  confine  myself 
to  the  universal  progress  and  ruling  spirit  of  intellect  and 
letters.  The  time  is  not  yet  come  for  a  complete  history  of 
German  literature.  Many  things  will  not  appear  in  their 
just  hght,  till  the  nature  of  their  consequences  has  been 
more  fully  developed.  It  is  impossible  to  raise  the  structure- 
till  the  matrrials  be  at  our  disposal. 


364  GENERAL  REVIEW. 

I  have  already  attempted  to  depict,  in  a  general  manner, 
the  most  illustrious  poets  of  the  first  generation.  In  order 
that  I  may  adhere  as  closely  as  may  be  to  the  order  of 
chronology,  I  shall  defer  for  a  little  my  view  of  the  philo- 
sophers, and  other  prose  writers,  their  contemporaries,  be- 
cause neither  of  the  most  celebrated  of  them,  Lessing  and 
Kant,  began  to  exert  an  effectual  influence  upon  the  general 
mind  till  somewhat  later. 

After  the  long  feuds  between  Austria  and  Prussia  had  at 
last  terminated  in  a  durable  peace,  Germany  enjoyed  a  num- 
ber of  years  of  repose  alike  salutary  to  her  states,  her  sciences, 
and  her  intellect.  At  one  time,  indeed,  it  seemed  as  if  this 
quiet  was  about  to  be  broken ;  but  the  danger  was  a  transi- 
tory one,  and  Germany  continued  to  flourish  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  peace  and  her  own  power,  without  being  conscious 
at  the  time,  to  what  causes  she  was  indebted  for  the  happi- 
ness of  her  condition. 

The  first  establishers  of  our  literature,  and  purifiers  of 
our  language  and  poetry,  who  either  immediately  preceded 
or  immediately  followed  Klopstock,  and  devoted  their  lives 
to  the  same  purposes  which  he  always  kept  in  view,  were 
placed  in  a  situation  of  no  ordinary  difficulty.  Many  of  the 
obstacles  which  were  opposed  to  them  they  overcame ;  their 
honourable  toils  prepared  and  smoothed  the  path ;  even  the 
errors  and  defects  which  may  be  remarked  in  them  have 
warned  and  guided  their  successors,  and  are  deserving  of  the 
respect  of  posterity. 

It  need  not  surprise  us  to  find,  that  the  second  generation 
of  German  poets  and  writers,  whose  genius  was  first  devel- 
oped about  the  year  1770,  have  an  appearance  of  boldness 
and  facility  to  which  their  predecessors  were  strangers. 
They  used  and  inherited  what  the  labours  of  the  first  gener- 
ation had  founded  and  created.  The  most  distinguished 
poets  of  this  epoch  are  Goethe,  Stolberg,  Voss,  Burger ;  to 
these  I  might  add  the  names  of  a  few  other  individuals  who 
were  nearly  or  exactly  their  contemporaries,  and  who,  by 
their  genius,  are  well  entitled  to  stand  beside  them,  although, 
either  from  the  character  of  their  works,  or  from  the  inci- 
dents of  their  oAvn  lives,  they  have  not  been  able  to  obtain 
an  equally  splendid  portion  of  celebrity.  It  is  very  true, 
that  along  with  these  there  arose,  at  that  period,  a  band  of 


SECOND  GENERATION.  365 

popular  writers,  very  inferior  to  them,  whose  writings  have 
almost  brought  the  time  of  their  production  into  some  con- 
tempt. But  that  this  epoch  was  in  itself  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  and  fruitful  in  the  whole  course  of  our  literary  his- 
tory, it  is  not  possible  to  doubt.  We  need  only  remember, 
that  in  addition  to  those  I  have  named,  Jacobi,  Lavatorj^ 
Herder,  and  John  Müller,  both  by  the  date  and  character  of 
their  works,  belong  to  this  epoch ;  men  whose  fame  is  not, 
confined  to  Germany,  but  has,  in  part  at  least,  been  echoed 
by  every  country  in  Europe.  The  writers  of  the  second 
generation  are,  both  in  spirit  and  in  style,  entirely  differeat 
from  those  who  went  before  them.  Their  method  of  writing 
is  full  of  soul,  fire,  and  life ;  abundant  in  animation  and  wit, 
original,  new,  and,  in  many  respects,  exquisite.  They  want, 
however,  uniformity,  regularity,  and  a  standard;  and  are 
often  chargeable  with  a  neglect  of  the  necessary  purity  of 
language.  This  is  true  even  of  Herder  and  John  Müller, 
the  most  erudite,  as  well  as  the  most  comprehensive,  spirits 
of  their  day.  It  might  almost  seem  as  if  the  adherents  of 
the  first  generation  were  right  in  asserting,  that  purity  of 
language  is,  if  not  exclusively,  at  least  principally,  the  por- 
tion of  those  whom  they  admire.  But  this  must  not  be  ta- 
ken in  its  fullest  extent ;  in  some  writers,  and  particularly 
some  poets  of  the  second  epoch,  in  Voss,  in  Stolberg,  and 
in  many  of  the  works  of  Goethe,  the  purity  of  language  is 
found  in  all  its  strictness  and  perfection;  more  so  than  per- 
haps in  any  writers  or  poets  of  the  first  generation.  The 
carefulness  of  Voss  in  respect  to  language  is  such  as  to  ren- 
der his  style,  on  some  occasions,  painful  and  hard ;  and  if  it 
be  true,  that  in  many  of  the  minor  works,  both  early  and 
late,  of  Goethe,  there  occur  many  carelessnesses,  yet  in  his 
noblest  poems  the  language  is  as  beautiful  as  German  can 
be,  and  possesses,  indeed,  an  artless  elegance  and  grace  to 
which  Klopstock  never  could  attain. 

The  language  was  not  only  enriched  by  the  genius  of 
these  writers  and  poets  who  followed  out  with  greater  free- 
dom of  step  the  path  opened  by  their  predecessors,  but  in- 
dividual works  were  produced  more  perfect  in  their  kind 
than  Germany  had  even  yet  possessed.  Poetry  at  that  time 
took  a  totally  new  direction.  Somewhat  earlier  it  had  been 
separated  into  two  parties,  the  imitators  of  Wielandj^  and 


IV 


366  GERMAN  CRITICISM. 

those  of  Klopstock.  The  first  set  thought  of  nothing  but 
muses,  graces,  love,  roses,  zephyrs,  nj^mphs,  and  hamadryds; 
the  second  re-echoed  the  old  minstrelsy  of  the  bards,  the 
ice-dance,  or  the  bear-hunt  among  rocks  and  wildernesses ; 
they  wandered  among  the  clouds  with  Eloah,  and  trod  hea- 
venly paths  strewed  with  suns  and  stars ;  or  if  they  stooped 
to  earth,  it  was  in  thunder,  storm,  and  whirlwind,  like  the 
trumpet  of  the  judgment.  Between  these  two  extremes  of 
monotonous  and  uninteresting  elevation,  and  luscious,  half- 
Greek,  half-modern  effeminacy,  the  new  poets  endeavoured 
to  establish  something  possessed  of  greater  power,  and  more 
akin  to  nature.  They  made  Homer,  as  the  great  poet  of 
living  nature,  the  chief  subject  of  these  eulogies,  and  trans- 
lated him  with  much  success  into  the  German  language. 
Or  they  revived  the  faded  recollections  of  ancient  German 
history,  art,  and  poetry,  although  they  were  in  some  instan- 
ces, little  qualified,  in  point  of  erudition,  to  do  what  they  had 
undertaken.  Their  attempts  were  in  general  mere  echoes ; 
but  some  were  both  admirable  in  themselves,  and  have  been 
productive  of  important  results.  The  single  work,  "  Götz 
of  Berlichingen  with  the  iron  hand,"  was  the  parent  of  a 
numerous  progeny  of  steel-clad  knights  and  brotherhoods, 
who  preserv^e  alive,  even  down  to  our  own  time,  the  memory 
of  old  German  freedom  and  heroism,  at  least  upon  the  stage. 
The  poem  itself  is  a  juvenile  one,  and  has  many  errors  and 
imperfections,  and  the  history  and  manners  represented  in  it 
are  very  far  from  being  the  true  ones ;  but  it  must  always 
retain  its  value  as  a  poetical  picture  of  great  energy,  and  be 
honoured  as  the  best  of  all  the  youthful  poems  of  its  author. 
Upon  the  whole,-  perhaps,  this  new  turn  of  things  carried 
poetry  somewhat  too  far  from  that  lofty  idea  which  Klop- 
stock conceived  of  it ;  it  was  separated  too  much  into  indi- 
vidual points,  and  brought  too  soon,  and  too  exclusively,  to 
the  service  of  the  stage.  It  seems  to  me,  at  least,  quite  cer- 
tain, that  a  national  theatre  is  never  the  better  of  being  an 
early  one.  The  Greek  theatre  itself  owes  much  of  its  ex- 
cellence to  the  period  of  its  development.  A  theatre  cannot 
possibly  assume  an  air  of  exquisite  perfection,  unless  it  has 
been  preceded  by  a  literature  and  poetry  cultivated  with  high 
success.  Above  all,  the  more  lofty  and  serious  species  of 
poetry  are  its  best  harbingers,  because  these  imply  a  national 


LESSING  AS  A  CRITIC.  367 

intellect  and  spirit  in  a  state  of  development  most  fitted  to 
receive  it.  The  criticism  of  Lessing  had  the  effect  of  draw- 
ing our  attention  too  much  to  the  stage.  With  all  his  acute- 
ness  and  erudition,  of  which  none  can  be  a  greater  admirer 
than  myself,  it  may,  I  think,  be  doubted  whether  Lessing 
produced  a  favourable  effect  on  the  German  theatre.  The 
translations  of  Corneille  and  Voltaire  soon  gave  place  to 
that  species  of  moral  domestic  pictures  introduced  into  France 
by  Diderot,  and  prose  was  even  supposed,  for  a  considerable 
time,  to  be  necessary  for  a  truly  natural  dialogue.  This 
pernicious  error,  however,  at  last  passed  away.  The  en- 
thusiasm for  Shakespeare,  to  which  Lessing  greatly  contrib- 
uted, was  more  permanent ;  and  from  him  we  derived  no- 
tions, both  of  nature  and  of  poetry,  far  more  profound  and 
exquisite  than  were  ever  entertained  by  any  of  the  school  of 
Diderot. 

As  a  critical  writer,  Lessing  was  better  adapted  for  dis- 
covering and  destroying  particular  errors  in  taste  than  for 
assigning  to  any  one  work,  author,  or  species  of  writing,  a 
true  and  just  place  in  the  scale  of  literary  merit.  He  had 
not  leisure  nor  patience  to  study  the  perfections  of  any  one 
great  work,  as  Winkelmann  did ;  and  without  such  mature 
consideration  and  quiet  enthusiasm,  no  man  can  become  an 
universal  critic.  We  must  learn  to  comprehend  the  essence 
of  art  from  admiration  of  excellence,  rather  than  from  de- 
tection of  error.  Lessing  is  too  much  a  philosopher,  and 
too  little  an  artist  in  his  criticism.  He  wants  that  energy  of 
fancy  by  which  Herder  was  enabled  to  transport  himself  in- 
to the  spirit  and  poetry  of  every  age  and  people.  It  is  this 
very  perception  and  feeling  of  the  poetical,  in  the  character 
of  natural  legends,  which  forms  the  most  distinguishing  fea- 
ture in  the  genius  of  Herder.  The  poetry  of  the  Hebrews 
was  that  which  most  delighted  him.  He  may  be  called  the 
myt'hologist  of  German  literature,  on  account  of  this  gift, 
this  universal  feeling  of  the  spirit  of  antiquity.  His  power 
of  entering  into  all  the  shapes  and  manifestations  of  fancy, 
implies  in  himself  a  very  high  degree  of  imagination.  Kfis 
mind  seems  to  have  been  cast  in  so  universal  a  mould,  that 
he  might  have  attained  to  equal  eminence,  either  as  a  poet, 
or  as  a  philosopher. 

Since  Winkelman  wrote,  the  taste  and  feeling  for  art  has 


368  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  ELDER  SCHOOL. 

been  perpetually  on  the  increase  among  the  Germans.  This 
has  been  promoted,  not  only  by  the  natural  love  which  we 
have  for  poetry,  but  by  the  removal  of  almost  all  German 
talents  from  the  affairs  of  external  life.  The  German  intel- 
lect has  been  left  only  two  fields  in  which  to  exert  itself, — 
taste  and  philosophy.  The  first  of  these  was  at  first  culti- 
vated to  a  degree "wliich  injured  the  second ;  for  many  Ger- 
man writers,  who  spent  their  lives  in  discoursing  of  subjects 
of  mere  art  and  taste,  were  evidently  formed  by  nature  for 
the  higher  species  of  philosophy.  Such  a  natural  predilec- 
tion is  apparent  enough,  even  in  Winkelmann ;  the  whole 
of  his  high  ideas  of  art  are  established  upon  the  ground  of  a 
Platonic  inspiration,  which  he  had  cultivated  in  the  best 
manner,  and  which  was  the  ruling  principle  of  all  his 
thoughts.  Of  all  kinds  of  philosophy,  there  is  none  which 
harmonizes  so  well  with  a  love  of  art  as  this ;  but  in  him 
the  Platonism  was  so  strong,  that  it  lifted  him  not  unfre- 
quently  very  far  above  the  subjects  of  which  he  treated.  In 
particular,  his  later  writings  are  full  of  manifestations  of 
this  philosophical  propensity,  and  I  know  not  but  it  might 
have  been  very  fortunate  for  German  philosophy,  had  it  set 
out  in  the  hands  of  such  a  Platonist  as  Winkelmann. 

Lessing,  so  soon  as  his  spirit  had  reached  the  height  of 
its  manly  maturity,  laid  aside,  as  follies  of  his  youth,  the 
whole  of  his  antiquarian,  dramatic,  and  critical  pursuits. 
The  philosophical  inquiry  after  truth  was  the  object  of  all 
his  later  exertions,  and  he  devoted  himself  to  this  noble  pur- 
suit with  an  earnestness  of  enthusiasm  to  which  even  his 
ardent  mind  had  as  yet  been  a  stranger.  In  his  earlier  pur- 
suits, he  seems  to  have  written  rather  by  way  of  exercising 
his  genius,  and  from  the  wish  of  overthrowing  his  adversa- 
ries, than  from  any  profound  love  of  his  own  cause.  How- 
ever much  nature  had  fitted  him  to  be  a  critic,  his  highest 
destination  was  for  philosophy.  He  was  too  far  above  his 
age  to  be  understood  by  it ;  and,  moreover,  he  did  not  live 
to  fill  up  the  outline  of  the  system  w^hich  he  embraced. 

Of  the  philosophers  of  the  elder  school,  Sultzer  devoted 
his  thoughts  and  researches  to  art,  ^vith  the  views  and  habits 
of  his  time;  Mendelsohn's  ambition  was  to  establish  the  uni- 
versal truths  of  religion  upon  philosophical  principles^ 
Garve  was  no  adherent  of  the  school  of  Leibnitz,  but  hi& 


THE  ENQUIRIES  OF  LAVATER.  869 

whole  character  shews  that  he  should  he  classed  with  the 
elder  period.  He  devoted  himself  principally  to  the  moral 
philosophy  of  the  ancients  and  the  English.  He  seems  to 
have  partaken  in  the  errors  of  his  masters,  and  to  have  view- 
ed ethics  as  founded  rather  on  the  principles  of  elegance  and 
the  agreeable,  than  on  those  true  and  more  profound  prin- 
ciples with  which  German  feeling  have  greater  sympathy. 
The  philosophical  romances  of  Wieland  had  a  still  more 
dangerous  tendency  to  promote  a  merely  Epicurean  system 
of  morality.  These  men  were  not  well  fitted  to  he  the 
guides  of  a  nation  and  age  placed  on  the  brink  of  such  con- 
flicts and  difficulties  as  were  then  about  to  agitate  the  world, 

Kant  was  not  as  yet  known.  Lavater  pursued  a  path  of 
his  own  quite  remote  from  all  the  rest.  The  world  has  be- 
come well  acquainted  with  the  follies  of  his  physiognomical 
reveries,  and  have  considered  him  as  a  mere  dreamer.  The 
profoundness  of  his  philosophical  views,  and  the  best  of  his 
works,  are  equally  unknown.  Of  all  the  inquirers  of  the 
last  century  I  know  of  none,  who,  next  to  Lessing,  laboured 
more  to  pursue  the  traces  of  forgotten  truth  than  Lavater. 

The  writings  of  Reimarus  concerning  natural  religion 
contain  nothing  but  what  is  quite  commonplace,  Lessing 
laid  hold  of  the  same  subject  with  very  different  views,  and 
with  superior  genius.  The  then  prevalent  doubts,  produced 
by  the  philosophy  of  Locke  and  Descartes,  had  no  interest 
for  him.  In  all  his  controversial  writings,  (and  in  none 
more  than  his  Education  of  the  Human  Race,  and  his  Free 
mason  Dialogues,)  we  may  discover  things  more  intimately 
connected  with  the  principal  subjects  of  the  higher  philoso- 
phy, than  any  contemporary  inquirer  seems  ever  to  have 
contemplated.  Leibnitz  was  the  only  philosopher,  near  his 
own  time,  of  whom  he  thought  much,  and  him  he  consider- 
ed as  standing  at  a  very  great  distance  from  those  who  at 
that  time  conceived  themselves  to  be  of  the  Leibnitzian 
school.  He  understood  him  belter  than  any  of  them,  be- 
cause he  studied  Spinosa  whom  they  neglected.  The  meta- 
physics of  Lessing  are,  indeed,  imperfect,  and,  in  some  re- 
spects, he  seems  not  only  to  have  overcome,  but  even  not 
to  have  understood  that  greatest  of  all  his  adversaries ;  but 
I  must  confess  that  I  think  he  saw  farther  than  Kant,  al- 
though not  with  so  systematic  an  eye,  into  the  deep  places 


370  THE  ENTHUSIASM  OF  LESSING. 

of  philosophy.  Had  he  lived  longer  and  husbanded  his 
strength,  his  influence  and  fame  might  have  become  very 
superior  to  what  they  are.  The  freedom  and  boldness  of 
his  spirit  might  have  given  a  better  direction  to  German 
philosophy  than  he  received  from  Kant  and  his  adherents. 
He  is  sometimes  said  to  have  been  a  Spinosist ;  but  of  this 
reproach  he  is  by  no  means  deserving.  One  of  his  most  fa- 
vourite notions  was  that  of  the  metempsychosis — a  doctrine 
obviously  quite  irreconcileable  with  the  genius  of  a  philoso- 
phy that  denied  the  personal  duration  of  the  soul.  Lessing's 
leaning  was  rather  to  the  old  oriental  philosophy,  and  of 
this  he  himself  makes  no  secret.  I  perfectly  agree  with 
those  who  maintain  that  enthusiasm  cannot  be  guarded 
against  with  too  much  care  and  anxiety ;  for  it  is  clear,  that 
all  the  masterly  learning  of  Leibnitz,  and  all  the  sound 
judgment  of  Lessing,  could  not  preserve  these  great  men 
from  mistakes  which  are  very  easily  discovered  and  ridiculed 
by  their  inferiors. 

The  enthusiasm  and  dreams  of  Lessing  did  not  pass  into 
the  spirit  of  the  age,  along  with  the  example  of  his  boldness, 
and  the  inheritance  of  his  doubts.  He  has  become  an  in- 
strument in  the  hands  of  his  most  inveterate  enemies.  In  a 
certain  sense  he  may  be  said  to  have  completed  the  work 
which  was  begun  by  Luther,  It  was  he  who  established 
Protestantism  in  the  most  enFightened  part  of  Germany,  or 
at  least  who  annihilated  there  the  cause  of  Catholicism.  It 
is  lamentable  indeed  to  see  with  what  perversity  of  inge- 
nious mischief  the  principles  of  this  deep  and  philosophical 
believer,  were  converted  into  the  weapons  of  illumination 
and  infidelity  by  Basedow,  Nicolai,  and  Weisshaupt.  Un- 
belief and  contempt  of  religion  did  not,  indeed,  make  the 
same  bold  and  rapid  strides  as  in  France,  or  as  among  cer- 
tain individuals  of  England,  but  the  undecided  and  phantastic 
shape  they  had  assumed  have  rendered  them  more  dangerous 
to  such  a  people  as  the  Germans ;  and  it  may  be  that  we 
have  not  as  yet  seen  the  worst  of  their  consequences. 

Even  the  repose  of  universal  peace,  and  the  flourishing 
condition  of  Germany,  must  have  been  favourable  to  the  rise 
of  a  new  mode  of  thinking,  quite  as  much  as  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  arts  and  sciences.  Although  these  did  not  in- 
deed receive  any  very  open  patronage,  yet  the  internal  satis« 


THIRD  EPOCH  OF  GERMAN  WRITERS.  371 

faction  of  a  powerful  and  thriving  nation  must  have  had  a 
very  considerable  effect  even  in  this  respect.  Germany  in 
the  middle  of  last  century,  and  in  the  period  immediately 
subsequent,  possessed  the  two  most  imposing  rulers  in  Eu- 
rope. Frederick  and  Maria  Theresa  were  in  different  ways 
the  pride  of  their  people,  and  expectations  even  of  a  still 
higher  nature  were  excited  by  the  youth  of  the  Emperoi 
Joseph  II.  His  active  reign  satisfied  the  hopes  of  his  sub- 
jects ;  but  so  far  as  science  and  art  were  concerned  the  pro- 
phecies of  the  patriotic  Klopstock  were  not  fulfilled.  As 
the  sovereign  of  so  many  countries  out  of  Germany,  this 
emperor  might  rather  have  been  expected  to  found  a  great 
scientific  institute  for  the  whole  of  Europe,  than  for  Germa- 
ny by  itself;  and  in  another  work  I  have  expressed  my  con- 
viction of  the  important  nature  of  those  services  which  by  so 
doing  he  might  have  rendered  to  the  spirit  and  mind  of  the 
age  in  which  he  appeared.  He  regarded  too  exclusively 
the  practical  side  of  the  sciences.  He  was  so  far,  however, 
from  having  any  contempt  of  them,  that  he  entered  with 
even  too  much  keenness  into  many  of  those  theories  of  law, 
finance,  and  police,  which  were  started  during  his  time.  It 
is  fit  and  natural  that  a  great  monarch  should  be  a  practical 
man,  even  in  regard  to  science,  but  they  who  are  the  best 
politicians  are  aware  that  physical  power  and  external  splen- 
dour are  not  the  only  component  parts  of  the  greatness  of  a 
nation. 

I  now  proceed  to  the  third  generation  in  German  litera- 
ture— a  period  remarkably  different  from  either  of  the  fore- 
going. By  fixing  our  eyes  distinctly  and  closely  upon  the 
general  character  of  these  different  epochs  and  generations, 
we  shall  adopt  the  surest  means  of  solving  many  otherwise 
dangerous  contradictions,  of  reconciling  many  apparently 
opposite  opinions,  taken  up  either  from  total  misunderstand- 
ing, or  from  looking  at  things  in  a  partial,  not  a  general 
point  of  view.  The  whole  external  circumstances  and 
ruling  spirit  of  that  epoch  in  which  the  first  education  and 
development  of  a  writer  occur,  determine  very  frequently 
the  character  of  his  genius,  and  in  all  cases  exert  a  very 
decisive  influence  over  his  choice  of  the  subjects  to  which  he 
applies  it. 

I  account  those  to  belong  to  the  third  generation  who 


872  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REVOLUTION. 

mostly  formed  their  taste  and  habits  of  thinking  during  the 
last  fifteen  years  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  external 
events  and  prevalent  spirit  of  the  time  had  a  mighty  influ- 
ence upon  the  German  literature ;  not  only  on  the  writers, 
but  on  the  public.  The  public  for  which  the  German 
writers  and  poets  laboured,  consisted  at  the  period  before 
this,  of  a  few  particular  friends  and  patrons  of  the  arts,  a 
few  scattered  dilettanti.  Such  was  the  public  of  Klopstock 
and  his  contemporaries,  and  it  was  long  before  the  small 
band  became  increased.  The  revolution  promoted  reading 
and  writing,  and  soon  extended  its  influence  over  literature 
and  philosophy  quite  as  widely  as  over  politics.  However 
injurious  in  many  instances  its  influence  may  have  been, 
there  is  no  question  that  it  roused  to  an  unexampled  degree 
the  public  interest  for  all  things,  and  that  even  the  violence 
of  party  rage,  like  most  other  species  of  conflict,  was  advan- 
tageous to  the  development  of  human  intellect.  If  I  should 
characterize  this  epoch  by  a  single  word,  I  would  call  it 
the  revolutionary  one — protesting,  however,  against  mis- 
takes, and  using  the  term  in  a  sense  not  a  little  diflferent 
from  the  common  one.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  to  the  honour 
of  the  German  Avriters,  the  most  distinguished  of  them,  at 
least,  remained  entirely  free  and  pure  from  the  democratic 
frenzy  of  the  first  years  of  the  revolution.  There  is  only 
one  exception,  and  he,  we  must  all  allow,  was  not  one  of 
the  deceivers,  but  one  of  the  deceived.  It  was  difficult  at 
that  period  to  resist  the  treacherous  hopes  which  were  every 
where  held  forth  for  acceptance,  but  such  of  our  better 
writers  as  had  been  so  deceived,  soon  returned  to  their  right 
judgment,  and  did  all  they  could  to  atone  for  their  errors. 
I  make  use  of  the  term  rather  in  the  same  sense  with  that 
m  the  admirable  saying,  "  Burke  wrote  a  revolutionary_ 
book  against  the  revolution."  The  meaning  of  this  is,  that 
Burke  painted  with  such  a  terrible  eloquence  the  convul- 
sions of  the  age,  and  so  perfectly  felt  and  understood  the 
danger  and  the  greatness  of  the  existing  struggle,  that  he 
himself  was  thrown  into  a  state  of  agitation  and  contagious 
violence  when  he  composed  his  book.  It  is  this  state  of 
an  internal  rather  than  of  an  external  struggle,  that  I  con- 
sider as  the  distinguishing  mark  and  characteristic  of  the 
third  generation.     In  order  to  make  my  meaning  perfectly 


\ 


SCEPTICISM  OF  SCHILLER.  373 

understood,  I  need  only  name  one  great  poet  and  writer  of 
this  period,  whose  splendid  career  has  already  been  brought 
to  its  close.  Schiller  in  the  first  enthusiastic  writings  of  his 
youth,  exhibits  all  the  most  striking  symptoms  of  internal 
conflict,  and  breathes  the  full  confidence  of  all  those  vision- 
ary hopes  and  violent  opposition  to  existing  institutions, 
which  were  the  immediate  harbingers  of  the  revolution. 
In  some  of  his  early  works  he  expresses  a  passionate  and 
painful  scepticism — an  unbelief,  which  is  accompanied  in 
his  young  spirit,  with  so  much  sublime  earnestness  and  fire 
of  energy,  that  we  contemplate  it  not  with  aversion,  but  with 
compassion,  and  with  the  hope  that  a  soul  so  fearfully  agi- 
tated and  so  panting  for  the  truth,  would,  in  its  period  of 
manhood  and  maturity,  attain  the  repose  of  faith.  What  a 
mighty  change  do  we  observe  in  the  subsequent  progress  of 
his  career !  what  a  dignified  struggle  with  himself,  the 
world,  the  philosophy  of  the  age,  and  his  own  art !  Rest- 
less in  himself,  and  perpetually  tossed  about  in  unquietness, 
he  comprehends  and  compassionates  the  universal  convul- 
sions of  the  time.  It  is  this  which  I  mean  to  express  by  the 
word  I  have  adopted,  for,  in  a  greater  or  in  a  less  degree, 
the  remark  I  have  made  concerning  Schiller  applies  to  all 
the  illustrious  writers  of  his  epoch. 

The  poets  and  other  authors  of  the  second  generation 
lived  in  a  state  of  carelessness,  which  appears  to  us  very 
remarkable,  accustomed  as  we  are  to  trace  in  the  events 
which  occurred  during  their  time,  the  seeds  of  all  the  sub- 
sequent agitations.  In  political  events  they  took  no  sort  of 
concern,  and  lived  in  a  total  contempt  of  the  whole  external 
world,  existing  only  for  themselves  and  the  enjoyment  of 
their  own  art.  John  Müller  alone  forms  an  exception ;  his 
spirit  was  entirely  devoted  to  historical  events,  and  looking 
down  from  the  solitary  elevation  of  his  Alps,  he  saw  farther 
into  the  gathering  tempests  of  the  political  world  than  any 
of  his  brethren,  inhabitants  of  the  peaceful  valley,  or  the 
tumultuous  capital.  Instead  of  this  artist-like  and  happy 
unconcern,  the  whole  of  the  writers  of  the  late  generation, 
who  appeared  between  the  year  1780  and  the  year  1800, 
appear  to  be  thoroughly  penetrated  with  the  spirit  and  feel- 
ings of  their  age ;  they  either  coincide  in,  or  oppose,  with 
the  violence  of  partisans,  the  prevalent  system  of  opinions. 

32 


374  kant's  philosophy. 

One  of  our  writers,  the  most  fertile  of  his  age,  creates  the 
greater  part  of  his  interest  by  taking  possession  of  the  mer- 
ciful and  tolerant  side  of  the  time ;  and  another  much  greater 
genius,  going  to  the  totally  opposite  extreme,  thinks  that  in 
his  favourite  i  he  has  discovered  the  Ilou  Stu  of  Archimedes. 
A  third  writer,  who  is  the  favourite  of  his  age  and  nation,  is 
so,  because  he  has  seized  upon  the  whole  wealth  of  this 
variously  developed  epoch,  and  represented  all  its  disso- 
nances and  complaints  with  wit,  sympathy,  and  a  peculiar 
species  of  humour,  in  a  style  the  remarkable  nature  of  which 
is  of  itself  a  sufficient  proof  that  the  period  in  which  it  was 
formed  was  a  revolutionary  one.  Other  authors,  disgusted 
with  the  chaotic  situation  of  actual  affairs,  betook  themselves 
to  the  regions  of  mere  fancy,  or  of  pure  science.  A  few  made 
a  wiser  use  of  their  experience,  and  returned  with  a  sense  of 
humility,  and  submission  to  the  aids  of  religion,  and  the  long 
neglected  sublimities  of  the  Bible. 

I  cannot  pretend  to  bring  my  history  any  farther  down, 
for  I  am  sensible  how  impossible  it  must  be  for  a  man  to 
depict  a  period  to  which  he  himself  belongs.  When  an 
external  struggle  becomes  universal  in  any  department  of 
human  activity,  the  social  as  well  as  the  intellectual,  it  is 
impossible  that  either  party  should  be  entirely  in  the  right. 
Even  they  who  have  espoused  the  right  cause  will  mingle 
something  wrong  in  the  feelings  of  their  triumph.  The 
creative  influence  of  a  period  of  convulsion  may  be  suffi- 
ciently proved  by  a  reference  to  the  history  of  Schiller — 
what  mighty  spaces  intervene  between  the  Robbers,  the 
Don  Carlos,  and  the  Wallenstein !  Invention  is  certainly 
more  favoured  by  such  a  period  than  perfect  finishing ;  but 
many  German  works  produced  during  these  years  exhibit 
both  in  a  beauty  which  they  can  manifest  only  when  they 
are  united. 

During  this  period  the  philosophy  of  Kant  was  at  the 
height  of  its  power  in  Germany.  That  its  effects  were  in- 
jurious in  respect  to  religion,  I  cannot  upon  the  whole  be- 
lieve, for  that  had  already  been  attacked  in  its  more  funda- 
mental principles  by  adversaries  much  more  fitted  to  pro- 
duce a  popular  effect.  If  in  some  respects  it  fostered 
doubts,  these  doubts  were  of  the  more  profound  and  serious 
nature,  and  carried  their  own  antidote  along  with  them.     I 


DEFECTS  OF  KANT.  375 

do  not  mean  to  say  any  thin^  in  favour  of  the  mere  faith  of 
reason,  but  I  maintain,  that  if  the  truth  had  been  entirely 
lost,  there  are  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  Kant  many 
hints,  by  means  of  which  a  serious  inquirer  might  have 
been  greatly  assisted  in  its  recovery.  If  we  reflect  how 
generally  a  degrading  infidelity  had  been  received  among 
the  Germans,  we  shall  easily  admit  that  a  more  dignified 
system  of  infidelity  must  have  been  advantageous  rather 
than  pernicious.  It  is  no  doubt  to  be  regretted,  that  the  phi- 
losophy of  Kant  so  soon  became  a  sect.  But  even  this  was, 
like  his  corruption  of  our  language,  only  a  transitory  evil. 
Kant's  own  style  has  the  stamp  of  his  character  ;  it  is  per- 
fectly original,  and  displays  much  philosophical  acumen, 
spirit,  and  wit.  But,  upon  the  whole,  and  particularly  in 
his  method  of  constructing  periods,  we  can  see  evident  marks 
of  a  soul  toiling  painfully  after  truth,  and  undergoing  per- 
petual concussions  from  its  doubts.  Hence  arose  the  un- 
fortunate Terminology.  But  that  barbarism,  the  cipher  lan- 
guage of  philosophy,  has  now  in  a  great  measure  disap- 
peared; only  a  few  of  our  better  writers  still  make  some 
use  of  it,  and  that  from  slovenliness.     The  best  philoso- 

{)hical  writings  of  later  years  are  quite  pure  in  respect  of 
anguage. 

In  Kant's  philosophy  are  to  be  found  many  of  the  defects 
of  his  predecessors  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centu- 
ries. He  sets  out  with  ideas  of  time  and  space  quite  as  dead 
as  those  of  Leibnitz ;  like  almost  all  other  philosophers  since 
Descartes  he  wavers  between  the  principle  of  personal  con- 
sciousness and  the  external  world  of  the  senses,  and  he  at 
last  lands  in  the  system  of  experience,  like  Locke.  As  this, 
however,  is  quite  silent  respecting  all  moral  and  divine  things, 
he  formed,  in  a  manner  not  very  consistent  either  with  the 
spirit  of  the  English  philosopher,  or  with  his  own  princi- 
ples, a  system  of  rational  faith  out  of  the  scattered  fragments 
of  rational  knowledge.  This  found  no  believers  or  follow- 
ers. The  Kantian  doctrines  of  morality  and  law  are  indeed 
valuable,  because  they  shew  exactly  how  far  reason  does 
enter  into  the  formation  of  true  morality  and  true  law ;  but 
they  furnish  an  example  even  more  striking  than  that  of  the 
Stoics,  how  inadequate  nay,  in  some  instances,  how  perni- 


o 


76  PRESENT  PHILOSOPHY  OF  GERMANY. 


cious,  any  system  of  ethics  must  be  which  rests  upon  no 
higher  foundation  than  reason  can  afford. 

The  chief  merit  of  Kant  in  regard  to  this  subject  is,  that 
he  demonstrated  the  incapacity  of  pure  reason  to  decide  any 
thing  at  all  respecting  such  subjects — that  she  can  acquire 
some  knowledge  of  God  and  divine  things  only  by  her  power 
of  gathering  facts  out  of  the  experience  of  human  life.  In- 
stead, however,  of  placing  reason  where  he  should,  in  the 
second  place,  he  erroneously  assigned  her  the  first,  and  the 
ill  used  name  of  faith,  which  he  bestowed  on  her,  was  a  very 
insufficient  mask.  Had  he  avoided  this  ancient  error,  and 
laid  open  the  path  to  true  knowledge,  w^ith  that  accuracy  of 
which  his  genius  was  capable,  he  might  have  attained  the 
great  object  of  his  ambition,  and  become  to  philosophy  what 
Bacon  has  been  to  physics.  He  might  have  put  an  end  for 
ever  to  verbal  difficulties,  and  established  religion  upon  the 
foundation  of  experience  and  science. 

To  explain  at  greater  length  the  two  main  errors  which 
have  sprung  from  the  philosophy  of  Kant,  and  to  give  you 
a  general  picture  of  the  present  philosophy  of  Germany, 
would  carry  me  very  far  beyond  the  limits  which  I  have  for 
the  present  prescribed  to  myself  Living  poets  who  have 
already  composed  a  series  of  great  works,  and  finished  their 
career  before  our  eyes,  may  be  taken  into  the  historical  pic- 
ture of  the  latest  period.  Not  so  philosophers ;  their  ideas 
may  yet  assume  a  different  form  of  development,  their  system 
is  as  yet  in  futuro.  I  shall  only  make  this  one  general  re- 
mark, that  our  country  has  been  distinguished  since  Kant  by 
a  spirit  of  profound  and  patient  investigation  ;  and  that  our 
philosophers  have  formed  their  ow^n  speculations  with  the 
advantages  of  a  more  extensive  learning  than  has  as  yet  been 
equalled  in  any  other  country  of  modern  Europe.  These 
are  the  best  preparations  and  symptoms  of  a  return  from  error 
to  truth.  Some  have  already  made  great  progress  in  the 
removal  of  the  errors  which  were  bequeathed  by  Kant.  I 
may  be  pardoned  for  mentioning  the  name  of  my  own  de- 
parted friend  Novalis  ;*  not  that  he  was  the  first  who  re- 
turned to  the  right  path,  or  that  he  has  carried  his  views 
farther  than  many  others,  but  because  the  fragments  which 

*  Heinrich  von  Hardenberg. 


MODERN  GERMAN  POETS.  377 

he  has  bequeathed  to  us  are  a  sufficient  proof  that,  had  he 
lived,  he  would  have  done  more  for  true  philosophy  than, 
any  of  those  whom  he  has  left  behind  him.  With  a  digni- 
fied simplicity  and  clearness  „Slottberg-  expresses  the  loftiness 
ofthat  faith,  which  not  only  gave  repose  to  his  feelings,  but 
energy  to  his  genius.  Many  approximations  have  been 
made,  and  are  now  making,  to  the  truth.  I  hope  that  ere 
long  the  return  will  be  universal,  and  the  philosophy  of 
Germany  assume  a  shape  in  which  she  will.be  no  longer  the 
enemy  and  darkener,  but  the  champion  and  torch-bearer,  of 
the  truth.  At  all  times  we  should  separate  persons  from 
opinions ;  but  above  all  we  should  beware  of  hating  or  dis- 
trusting philosophy  in  general,  merely  on  account  of  the  in- 
dividual errors  into  which  her  adherents  may  have  been  be- 
trayed. False  philosophy  can  only  be  supplanted  by  the 
true.  This  consideration  should  quicken  the  energy  .and  sus- 
tain the  confidence  of  the  age. 

I  now  turn  to  the  poets — ^but  I  must  confine  myself  to  a 
very  few  remarks  even  concerning  them.  During  this  pe- 
riod the  more  mature  works  of  Goethe  first  became  known 
and  admired,  as  they  deserved  to  be,  and  many  of  them  be- 
long to  it  even  by  the  date  of  their  compositions.  The  best 
of  them  are  now  very  generally  admitted  to  be,  both  in  re- 
spect to  poetical  art  and  beauty  of  language,  the  most  excel- 
lent of  which  the  German  language  can  boast.  This  poet 
possesses,  in  an  unequalled  degree,  that  power  and  ease  by 
which  the  writers  of  the  second  generation  are  distinguished. 
In  some  particular  pieces  his  example  might  indeed  be  a 
misleading  one  ;  for  even  in  his  maturer  years  he  has  too 
often  brought  down  his  poetry  to  the  present ;  and  there  is 
indeed  perhaps  no  other  poet  who  has  bestowed  so  much  art 
upon  subjects  entirely  modern.  But  nothing  can  enable  us 
to  judge  better  of  the  difficulty  of  this  whole  undertaking 
than  the  simple  comparison  of  his  writings  of  modern  repre- 
sentation with  those  poems  of  which  the  subjects  are  taken 
from  periods  more  remote.  How  inferior  is  Eugenie  to 
Egmonty  considering  both  as  poetical  representations  of  the 
mode  in  which  civil  disorder  and  revolution  are  fostered  and 
extended  in  the  vulgar  and  in  the  cabinet.  Or  if  we  may 
be  allowed  to  class  together  works  externally  of  different 
species,  on  account  of  the  kindred  nature  of  their  internal 

32* 


\ 


378  OF  goethe's  dramas. 

import,  how  superior  is  the  Tasso  to  the  Affi,nities  of  Choice^ 
as  a  picture  of  the  development  of  passion  in  the  higher  orders 
of  society.  If  we  look  upon  the  last  named  work  merely 
as  a  representation  of  the  mind  struggling  with  the  world, 
(like  the  Faustus,)  and  compare  it  in  that  point  of  view  with 
the  William  Meister,  how  greatly  must  it  appear  its  infe- 
rior, both  in  respect  to  thought  and  style.  If  we  look  to  the 
poetry  alone,  I  imagine  that  these  works,  Faustus,  Iphigenia, 
Egmont,  and  Tasso,  will  maintain  in  future  ages  the  fame 
of  this  author,  along  with  the  most  beautiful  of  his  songs. 
In  that  mode  of  composition  he  has,  in  every  period  of  his 
life,  been  alike  admirable. 

Many  doubt  whether  Goethe  was  meant  by  nature  for  a 
dramatic  poet,  and  think  that  even  in  such  of  his  pieces  as 
are  best  adapted  for  the  stage,  as  for  instance  in  Egmont,  the 
repose  of  his  descriptive  representations  points  out  a  poet 
whose  tendency  is  rather  to  the  epic.  His  attempts,  how- 
ever, in  the  epic,  or  in  those  species  most  nearly  allied  to  it, 
have  never  been  eminently  successful.  It  seems  as  if  he  had 
never  been  able  to  light  upon  either  a  subject  or  form  of  epic 
composition  exactly  to  his  mind.  His  feelings  led  him  more 
to  the  romantic  than  the  proper  heroic ;  and  the  romantic,  in 
the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  when  it  affords  play  alike  for 

I  fancy,  wit,  feeling,  and  observation,  seems  to  be  indeed  the 

I  proper  sphere  of  this  great  poet. 

The  influence  which  he  exerted  over  his  age  was  two- 
fold, and  such  also  appears  to  be  his  nature.  In  respect  of 
his  art,  many  have  called  him  with  justice  the  Shakespeare 
of  our  age — an  age,  namely,  which  leans  more  to  riches  of 
ideas  and  variety  of  cultivation,  than  to  high  perfection  of 
art  in  any  one  department  of  poetry.  In  respect  to  his  mode 
of  thinking,  as  he  has  applied  it  to  the  concerns  of  actual 
life,  our  poet  deserves  his  other  appellation  of  the  German 
Voltaire.  A  German  he  is  in  every  thing ;  and  even  his 
mockeries,  ironies,  and  unbelief,  are  expressed  with  a  tone 
of  goodheartedness,  seriousness,  and  eloquence,  to  which  the 
French  Voltaire  was  an  utter  stranger.  The  want  of  settled 
principle  is  indeed  the  defect  which  most  frequently  strikes 
us  in  the  midst  of  all  the  polished  elegance,  exquisite  irony, 
and  profuse  wit  which  this  great  poet  has  lavished  over  all 
the  creations  of  his  genius. 


Schiller's  doubts.  379 

The  unhappy  relation  of  the  German  poetry  to  the  Ger- 
man stage,  is  apparent  from  this  circumstance,  that  both 
Klopstock  and  Goethe  have  written  many  dramas  which 
they  never  meant  for  representation ;  although  some  of  the 
pieces  of  Goethe,  so  composed,  have,  at  a  subsequent  period, 
been  brought  upon  the  stage.  The  same  circumstance  oc- 
curred with  respect  to  the  Don  Carlos  of  Schiller ;  and  after 
he  had  resisted  all  the  seductive  influence  of  his  first  success, 
he  has  not  been  able  to  produce  so  much  effect  by  the  more 
dignified  exertions  of  his  art.  But  even  although  there  re- 
mains some  want  of  harmony  between  his  poetry  and  our 
stage,  still  he  was  the  true  founder  of  our  drama.  He  gave 
it  its  proper  sphere,  and  its  most  happy  form.  He  was 
thoroughly  a  dramatic  poet ;  even  the  passionate  rhetoric 
which  he  possessed  along  with  his  poetry,  belonged  exactly 
to  this  character.  His  historical  and  philosophical  works 
and  attempts  are  only  to  be  considered  as  the  studies  and 
preparations  of  a  dramatic  artist.  Yet  his  philosophical 
tracts  are  very  valuable,  from  the  light  which  they  afibrd  us 
into  his  internal  spirit,  and  the  proof  they  give  of  his  want 
of  mental  harmony.  A  doubting,  sceptical,  unsatisfied  dis- 
position seems  to  accompany  his  spirit  in  all  its  inquiries. 
He  himself  appears  to  have  remained  always  at  the  very 
threshold  of  doubt,  and  even  in  the  noblest  and  most  animated 
of  his  works  we  are  chilled  by  the  breath  of  an  internal 
coldness. 

Some  have  been  of  the  opinion,  that  Schiller's  philosophi- 
cal pursuits  were  injurious  to  him,  even  in  respect  to  his 
own  art.  But,  in  truth,  his  infidelity  had  its  origin  at  an 
earlier  period,  and  the  satisfying  of  a  spirit  such  as  his  was 
a  matter  of  greater  moment  than  any  thing  which  regards 
the  mere  finishing  of  an  art.  And  even  with  a  view  to  the 
drama,  I  think  that  the  historical  and  philosophical  turn 
which  Schiller  has  given  to  some  of  his  tragedies,  is  by  no 
means  deserving  of  censure.  Our  theatre  is  not  to  flourish 
by  means  of  voluminous  authors ;  but  like  those  of  Greece, 
England,  and  Spain,  by  means  of  profound  thought  and  his- 
torical import.  At  one  period  of  his  life  Schiller  seems  in- 
deed to  have  entertained  some  false  notions  respecting  the 
essence  of  the  ancient  tragedy,  but  this  we  must  consider 
merely  as  a  proof  that  he  had  not  at  that  time  brought  the 


380  PROSPECTIVE  VIEW. 

Studies  which  he  pursued  so  earnestly,  to  their  proper  ter- 
mination. 

The  same  lofty  ideas  of  tragedy  which  Schiller  enter- 
tained were  also  held  by  Henry  Collin.  So  intensely  was 
his  spirit  imbued  with  the  inspiration  of  patriotism,  that 
even  when  he  treats  of  subjects  of  antiquity,  he  is  always  a 
national  poet. 

I  feel  that  I  have  now  reached  the  termination  of  the  pic- 
ture which  I  undertook  to  unfold.  The  multitude  of  cir- 
cumstances which  pressed  upon  me,  and  the  interest  which 
I  took  in  the  representation  of  the  middle  age,  have  abridged 
me  in  the  latter  part  of  my  labours.  I  have  done  little  more 
in  these  last  lectures  but  point  out  the  names  of  men  upon 
whose  works  I  should  have  dilated  with  much  more  fulness, 
both  for  your  sakes  and  for  my  own.  In  regard  to  German 
literature,  if  I  had  not  confined  myself  to  very  narrow  limits, 
each  several  province  or  department  might  easily  have  oc- 
cupied a  space  as  considerable  as  that  which  I  have  devoted 
to  the  whole. 

I  see  plainly  that  a  new  generation  are  arising  and  fashion- 
ing themselves,  and  that  the  nineteenth  century  will  be  no 
less  distinguished  in  the  history  of  German  letters  than  the 
eighteenth  has  been.  But  the  spirit  and  tendency  of  this 
young  generation  are  not  yet  so  much  developed  that  I  can 
venture  to  give  any  certain  opinion  as  to  its  character.  Much 
will  be  expected  from  them,  for  great  things  have  been  done 
to  prepare  the  way  for  them.  If  w^e  are  to  speak  of  the 
whole  body  of  the  German  literature,  I  do  not  hesitate  for  a 
moment  to  say,  that  I  expect  all  our  most  sanguine  expecta- 
tions will,  at  no  very  distant  period,  be  fulfilled.  At  present 
I  see  much  both  of  false  taste  and  affectation  in  our  art  and 
poetry.  The  imitation  of  the  antique,  and  of  the  great  men  of 
the  preceding  age,  is  conducted  on  narrow  principles.  Even 
in  philosophy  we  have  not  borrowed  the  best  part  of  those  who 
have  gone  before  us.  But  I  hope  that  ere  all  long  these  things 
will  exist  only  in  remembrance.  If  the  times  proceed  as  they 
have  lately  done,  literature  will  soon  become  much  less  the 
concern  of  individuals  than  of  the  public,  and  the  influence  of 
readers  upon  authors  will  at  least  be  as  that  of  authors  upon 
readers.  Since  the  middle  of  last  century,  literary  works 
and  literary  men  have  assumed  a  totally  new  character  in 


DECLINE  OF  SECTARIANISM.  381 

Germany,  more  so  than  m  any  other  country  of  Europe. 
The  greater  the  number  of  spectators  is,  the  more  is  the  in- 
terest in  the  spectacle ;  and  I  know  not  that  any  literature 
can  be  inspired  more  favourably  than  by  the  constant  contem- 
plation of  such  a  spirit  and  nation  as  our  own. 

Even  the  spirit  of  sectarianism,  however  deeply  it  has 
been  implanted  among  us,  has  of  late  years  been  visibly  on 
the  decline.  Of  those  sects  which  in  the  last  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century  had  most  influence  in  Germany,  and  on 
that  account,  if  on  no  other,  are  historically  of  some  impor- 
tance, the  illuminati  sunk  into  the  background,  at  the  first 
appearance  of  the  more  profound  philosophy ;  the  Kantians 
have  now  begun  to  be  as  weary  of  their  own  system  as  the 
world  was  before  them,  and  even  the  natural  philosophers 
have  become  split  into  so  many  parties  that  they  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  form  any  longer  a  particular  sect.  I  am  far  from 
flattering  myself  that  the  errors  of  any  one  of  these  systems 
no  longer  exist,  but  they  do  not  shew  themselves  in  the  same 
imposing  form  as  before.  The  spirit  of  sect  has  become 
milder;  scholastic  forms  have  sunk  into  comparative  con- 
tempt, and  all  parties  prepare  to  labour  in  unison  on  the 
great  work  of  developing  the  intellect  of  Germany. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  for  me  to  recall  to  your  recollec- 
tion that  our  literature,  even  from  the  first  epoch  of  its  de- 
velopment, has  been  in  a  state  of  perpetual  contest  and  strug- 
gle. At  first  the  conflict  lay  between  the  Swiss,  who  ad- 
mired exclusively  the  poetry  and  criticism  of  England  and 
antiquity,  and  the  Saxons,  who  were  the  professed  worship- 
pers of  the  literature  and  taste  of  France ;  then  between  the 
serious  and  playful  poets,  the  followers  of  Klopstock  and 
those  of  Wieland :  and  in  another  department,  between  the 
orthodox  party,  and  the  new  sect  of  illuminati.  The  contest 
assumed  a  more  serious  appearance  in  the  time  of  the  Kan- 
tian philosophy,  as  a  regular  struggle  between  idealism  and 
empiricism.  Both  of  these  last  combatants  have  in  a  cer- 
tain sense  gained  the  victory.  Empiricism  has  with  justice 
become  the  ruling  system  in  all  that  regards  practical  life, 
physics,  and  pure  science.  Idealism,  taking  it  in  the  high- 
est acceptation  of  the  word,  as  the  system  of  those  who  re- 
cognize ideas  as  superior  to  sensation,  has  exerted  a  power- 
ful and  an  abiding  influence  upon  our  art,  our  criticism,  and 


382         STRUGGLES  OF  THE  INTELLECT. 

our  higher  philosophy.  We  often  hear  men  speak  of  the 
new  school,  and  the  golden  age.  I  have  already  said  that 
our  literature  has  no  proper  golden  age,  and  I  acknowledge 
I  can  as  yet  observe  nothing  that  is  deserving  to  be  called  a 
new  school.  We  should  be  ambitious  to  perfect  what  has 
been  begun,  not  to  shew  our  invention  at  the  expense  of  our 
judgment.  Another  foolish  enmity  which  has  become  for- 
gotten, is  that  which  subsisted  between  the  literary  men  of 
the  North,  and  of  the  South  of  Germany.  We  were  never 
so  sensible  of  our  national  identity  as  now. 

If  we  consider  the  remarkable  struggles  of  intellect  which 
occurred  during  the  last  century,  in  a  more  general  point  of 
view — as  they  developed  themselves,  not  in  Germany  alone 
but  in  England,  in  France,  and  in  the  whole  of  Europe, — 
and  ask  for  a  merely  historical  solution  of  this  great  pheno- 
menon, the  following  is  probably  the  conclusion  at  which 
we  should  arrive.  This  struggle  has  had  its  seat  not  in 
those  persons  and  events  alone  wherein  it  has  been  mani- 
fested to  us,  but  rather  in  a  great  internal  awakening  through- 
out the  whole  intellect  of  man. 

The  wild  wanderings  of  reason  and  power  of  thought  set 
free  from  all  control,  and  then  the  reviving  of  imagination, 
which  had  so  long  slept  beneath  the  pressure  of  a  formal 
and  (apparently  only)  a  scientific  system,  were  probably  the 
moving  causes  of  all  these  manifold  convulsions  and  con- 
flicts. In  France  despotic  and  contemptuous  reason  re- 
nounced all  the  bonds  of  faith  and  love,  and  displayed  its 
destructive  influence  upon  the  external  life  and  manners  of 
a  nation,  in  a  way  which  has  furnished  us  and  our  posterity 
with  a  warning  and  a  terrible  example.  In  Germany,  from 
the  different  character  of  the  nation,  the  spirit  of  the  time 
manifested  itself  not  in  bloody  revolutions,  but  in  the  entan- 
gled warfares  of  metaphysicians.  The  regeneration  of  fancy 
has  in  more  countries  than  one  shewn  itself  in  the  revived 
love  of  old  traditions  and  romantic  poetry.  To  the  extent 
and  depth,  however,  wherein  this  love  has  been  kindled 
among  the  Germans,  no  other  nation  of  Europe  can  fur- 
nish a  parallel.  They  have  had  their  time,  it  is  fit  that  we 
should  now  have  ours. 

Were  I  called  upon  to  select  one  example  of  the  preva- 
lent power  and  freedom  of  reason,  of  the  endless  rapidity 


FICHTE  AND  TIECK.  383 

with  which  strong  spirits  weaken,  destroy,  and  recreate  the 
structure  of  thought,  I  should  fix  upon  none  more  readily 
than  Fichte ;  not  merely  on  account  of  power  of  invention 
and  masterly  management  of  thought,  which  are  in  so  high 
a  degree  peculiar  to  him,  but  also  because  he  takes  the  ma- 
terials of  thoughts  entirely  from  himself,  trusts  every  thing 
to  nature,  and  depends  in  nothing  upon  those  who  have  gone 
before  him.  The  corresponding  energy  in  the  exertions  of 
imagination,  the  resurrection,  as  I  might  call  it,  of  fancy  in 
Germany,  cannot  be  more  strongly  exemplified  than  in 
Tieck — a  poet  who  is  so  perfectly  master  of  all  the  depths, 
•^and  observations,  and  wonders,  and  mysteries  of  his  art. 

So  far  have  reason,  and  imagination,  and  the  century  ad- 
vanced ;  but  as  yet  no  farther.  We  must  not,  however,  for- 
get, that  unless  we  retrograde,  we  must  of  necessity  proceed. 
To  this  profoundness  of  reason  which  we  have  attained,  and 
this  fulness  and  majesty  of  fancy  which  have  been  restored 
to  us,  there  must  yet  be  added  that  stableness  of  will  and  pur- 
pose, which  brings  the  seeds  of  good  to  maturity,  and  guards 
them  from  the  first  encroachments  of  corruption.  The  clear- 
ness of  an  enlightened  judgment  must  watch  over  those 
mighty  energies  of  reason  and  of  fancy.  True  judgment 
depends  in  all  things  upon  universality  of  observation,  and 
discernment  of  that  which  is  right,  in  the  midst  of  much 
more  that  is  wrong. 

I  have  endeavoured  in  these  lectures,  to  lead  you  to  a 
point  of  view  from  which  all  our  literature  and  all  the  ope- 
rations of  our  intellect  should  be  surveyed ;  as  in  all  my 
more  early  attempts,  my  object  has  been  to  discriminate  be- 
tween the  good  and  the  evil,  without  any  ambition  to  display 
those  arts  of  rhetoric  which  might  have  pleased  your  ears, 
but  could  not  have  aided  your  judgment. 


THE  END. 


INDEX. 


A. 

Achilles  and  Patroclus,  the  graves 
of,  19.  And  Ulysses,  Criticism 
upon,  20. 

JEschylus,  his  dramatic  genius,  23. 
His  characteristics  as  a  poet,  25. 

Age,  of  Socrates,  its  peculiar  cha- 
racteristics, 28.  Its  influence 
on  the  Greek  philosophy,  55. 
Of  Charlemagne,  169.  Its  en- 
couragement of  religion,  170. 
Of  the  Crusades,  175.  Influ- 
ence and  character  of  its  love 
poetry,  176.  Of  the  Trouba- 
dours, its  effects  upon  literature, 
199.     Of  Voltaire,  its  influence 

.  on  the  French  philosophy,  292. 
Alexandrian,  the,   state  of  the 

■  arts  during,  37.  Augustan, 
its  high  refinement,  &c.,  84,  90. 
Middle,  its  allegorizing  spirit, 
205. 

Alphabet,  Greek,  its  derivation 
from  the  Phoenicians,  14. 

Anaxagoras,  the  first  who  recog- 
nized the  existence  of  a  supreme 
intelligence,  46. 

Ancient  manuscripts,  loss  of,  164. 

Anglo-Saxon  language,  the,  172. 

Ancient  literature,  the  misuse  of, 
217. 

Arab  literature,  its  connexion  with 
ancient  Persia,  188. 

Arabian  Tales,  the,  their  peculi- 
arities, 187. 

Arabs,  the,  elder  poetry  of,  186. 

Archimedes,  his  ingenuity,  &c.,  64. 

Aristophanes,  character  of  his  po- 
etic and  historical  writings,  32. 
Characteristics  of  his  times,  iind. 
His  eminence  in  poetry,  3tj, 


Aristotle's  system  of  ethics,  102. 
His  disciples,  ibid.  Defects  of 
bis  theory,  103.  Influence  of 
his  philosophy  on  posterity,  ibid. 

Arthur    and    his    Round    Table. 
184. 

Arts,  their  high  cultivation  among 
the  Greeks,  37. 


B. 


Bible,  the  peculiarities  of  its  style, 
&c.,  207.  Its  influence  on  lite- 
rature and  manners,  206. 

Bhogovotgita,  the,  translated  by 
Wilkins,  128. 

Boccaccio,  of,  Decameron  its  pe- 
culiarities of  style,  &c.,  204. 

Böhme,  Jacob,  the  philosophic 
works  of,  352. 

Bossuet,  his  genius  and  style,  308. 
As  compared  with  Racine  and 
others,  309. 

Brahmins,  their  doctrines  and  fa- 
bulous chronology,  102.  Their 
religious  creed,  &c.,  132. 

Buffbn,  his  great  genius,  318.  Com- 
pared with  Rosseau,  327. 

Burke,  influence  of  his  philosophy, 
341. 


C. 


Csesar,  the  writings  of,  83. 

Calderon,  the  last  and  greatest 
Spanish  poet,  277.  His  distin- 
guishing attributes,  278. 

Camoens,  his  genius  and  works, 
262.    As  compared  with  Tasso,    • 
265. 


386 


INDEX. 


Cathedral  of  Milan,  the  architec- 
ture of,  197. 

Cervantes'  Don  Cluixote,  268.  His 
other  works,  269. 

Chivalrous  poetry  of  Italy,  its  age 
of  perfection,  148, 182, 214.  Fic- 
tions, their  success  in  Germany, 
194. 

Christianity  and  heathenism,  the 
contests  of,  98.  Its  relations  to 
poetry,  208. 

Christian  religion,  its  progress  and 
jpersecution,  136.    Under  Julian, 

137.  Its  influence  on  the  Ro- 
man   literature    and    language, 

138.  Writers  of  the  earlier  ages, 
140.  The  Fathers  of  the  church, 
145.  Poets,  the  great,  Milton 
and  others,  209.  And  Persian 
systems  of  religion  compared, 
189. 

Cicero's  Orations,  characteristics 
of,  80.  Their  influence  on  Ro- 
man literature,  81. 

Cid,  the,  its  nationality  and  value, 
201.     Its  peculiarities,  261. 

Comprehensive  view  of  German 
literature,  193. 

Contests  of  the  old  and  foreign 
Uterature,  &c.,  219. 

Corneille,  Racine,  and  Voltaire, 
their  respective  styles,  297. 

Creed  of  the  Brahmins,  132. 

Crusades,  the,  mfluence  of,  185. 


Dante,  his  characteristics  of  a  great 
poet,  204,  210. 

Decline  of  the  tragic  art  among 
the  Greeks,  56.  Of  Poetry,  62, 
329.  Of  the  fine  arts  in  the  age 
of  Theodoric,  146.  Of  the  Ger- 
man language,  2l6.  Of  histori- 
cal writing,  o33. 

Descartes,  his  system,  &c.,  305. 
His  vain  attempt,  &c.,  306.  His 
followers,  307. 

Despotism  of  reason,  319. 
•  Diderot's  works,  critical  remarks 
on,  321. 


Doctrine  of  pure  ethics,  319. 

Dogmas  of  Helvetius,  320. 

Don  Cluixote,  the,  of  Cervantes, 
remarks  on,  268. 

Drama,  the,  of  the  Romans,  74. 

Dramatic  poetry,  its  end  and  de- 
sign, 279.  Ancient  and  modern, 
284. 


E. 

Early  French  literature,  200.  Chris- 
tian writers,  140. 

Elevation  of  the  female  character 
among  the  Greeks,  33. 

Elements  of  dramatic  composition, 
282. 

Embalming,  the  practice  of,  by  the 
Egyptians,  115. 

English  language,  the,  its  tenden- 
cies, &c.,  290.  Writers  of  ro- 
mance, 326.  Smollett,  Fielding, 
&c,  ■ü/id.  Of  elegant  literature, 
ibid. 

Epochs  of  Grecian  history,  15.  Of 
European  science,  218. 

Epic  poetry,  its  origin  and  charac- 
teristics, 179. 

Epicurus,  the  doctrines  of,  their 
influence,  &c.,  82. 

Ethics,  the,  of  Socrates,  101.  Com- 
pared with  those  of  Aristotle  and 
Plato,  ibid. 

Euclid,  the  classical  authority  of 
his  works,  64. 

Euripides,  the  sophistry  of,  28. 
His  enmity  to  Aristophanes,  iJ). 

Europe  during  the  l8th  century, 
237. 

European  literature,  its  rise  and 
progress,  14. 


Faith,  religious,  of  the  Hebrews 
and  Persians,  110. 

Female  influence  in  ancient  times, 
33.     High  estimate  of,  178. 

Fichte  and  Tieck's  writings,  re- 
marks on,  383. 


INDEX. 


387 


Flemming,  the  works  of,  353. 

Foreign  languages,  study  of,  3. 
Its  advantages  to  the  vernacu- 
lar, ibid. 

Frederick  II.,  the  influence  of,  on 
the  Uterature  of  Germany,  355. 

French  language  and  literature, 
291.  Compared  with  the  Ro- 
man, 310.  Its  changes,  338. 
Poetry,  revival  of,  293.  Its  pe- 
culiarities, 296.  As  seen  in  Cor- 
neille, Racine,  &c.,  297.  Dra- 
ma, its  progress,  294.  The 
rhetoric  of,  298.  Compared 
with  the  EngUsh,  330.  Trage- 
dy, its  imitation  of  the  Greek, 
295.  Philosophy,  the  new,  its 
evils,  &c.,  315.  Voltaire,  Ros- 
seau,  and  Diderot,  325.  Style, 
its  peculiar  features,  323.  Com- 
pared with  that  of  English  wri- 
ers,  324.  Character,  its  resem- 
blance to  its  literature,  ibid. 
Taste,  reflections  on,  328. 

Future  crisis  of  England,  337. 


G. 


Garcilaso,  character  of  his  works, 
250. 

Genius  of  Lucretius,  77. 

German  language,  its  superiority, 
159.  Its  origin  and  progress, 
172.  Its  genms  and  peculiari- 
ties, 229.  Love  poetry,  its  ori- 
gin, &c.  177.  Writers  of  ro- 
mance, 195.  General  view  of, 
362.  Literature,  changes  in,  1. 
Second  generation,  365.  Third 
epoch,  371.  Its  future  pros- 
pects, 380.  Decline  of  sectari- 
anism, 381.  Union  of  the  north- 
em  and  southern  states,  382. 
Effects  of  this,  iMd.  Schools  of 
philosophy,  342.  Their  present 
condition,  343.  Spinosa  and  Lieb- 
nitz,  344.  The  morality  of  Spi- 
nosa, 345.  The  philosophy  of 
Leibnitz,  346.  His  ideas  of  time 
and  space,  347.  Language  and 
poetry,  348.  Criticism  and  min- 
«trelsy,  366< 


Gessner,  the  genius  of,  359. 

Ghibellinism,  extent  of  its  influ- 
in  the  time  of  Dante,  211. 

Gibbon's  historical  writings,  332, 

Goethe's  dramas,  characteristic» of, 
378.  Compared  with  Shakes- 
peare, ibid. 

Gothic  architecture,  its  rise  and 
progress,  147,  196.    Its  pecuUar- 
ities  198.     Literature,  remnants   / 
of,  149. 

Goths,  the,  their  poetry,  &c.,  150. 

Graves  of  Achilles  and  Patroclus, 
19. 

Grecian  political  history  as  con- 
trasted with  that  of  the  Per- 
sians, Phoenicians,  &c.,  16.  Li- 
terature in  its  flourishing  era, 
15.  Its  after  progress,  29.  Com- 
pared with  that  of  Rome,  69. 
Retrospect  of,  65.  Its  later  con- 
dition, 95,  141.  Manners,  the 
decline  in,  34. 

Greek  tragedy,  its  high  perfection 
in  the  time  of  Sophocles,  27,  75. 
Mythology,  the  deformities  of, 
42.  Allegories  and  symbols,  43. 
Their  influence  on  character,  44. 
Philosophy,  its  tenets,  &c.,  45. 
Its  later  characteristics,  105. 
Authors,  their  peculiarities,  70. 
Compared  with  Roman,  139. 
Their  poetry,  144.  Women, 
their  elevation  of  character,  33. 
Influence  on  Roman  literature, 
63. 

Greeks,  the  sceptical  opinions  of, 
48. 

Grotius,  Hugo,  the  works  of  com- 
pared with  Lord  Bacon,  302. 
Their  influence,  ibid.  Charac- 
teristics of  his  writings,  303. 
number  of  his  adherents,  304. 

Guarini's  "  Pastor  Fido,"  266.  Its 
characteristic  beauties,  207. 


H. 

flebrews,  religious  belief  of,  con- 
trasted with  that  of  the  Greeks, 
106.  Its  influence  in  Persia,  109. 


388 


INDEX. 


Herodotus,  works  of,  compared 
with  iEschylus,  26.  As  an  his- 
torian, ibid. 

Heraclitus,  his  theory  of  nature, 
45. 

Heroic  ballads  of  the  early  Ro- 
mans, 71.     Age,  the,  191. 

Hesiod,  the  poetry  of,  compared 
with  that  of  Orpheus,  39. 

Hindoos,  the  books  and  poems  of, 
119.  Their  comparative,  resem- 
blance to  the  Christian,  130. 
Religious  system  of,  33.  Its  in- 
feriority to  the  Christian,  ibid. 
Compared  with  other  nations, 
134. 

Hindostan,  the  historical  Uterature 
of,  126. 

History,  its  importance  to  a  na- 
tion, 11.  Its  influence  in  after 
ages,  ibid.  National,  philosoplii- 
cally  described,  10. 

Homer,  extensive  influence  of  his 
genius,  12.  His  pre-eminence 
as  a  poet  and  philosopher,  13. 
His  poems,  their  preservation, 
18.  Compared  with  the  old 
songs  of  the  Arabians  and  the 
poems  of  Ossian,  ibid.  The  cha- 
racteristic excellence  of  his  wri- 
tings, 21.  Signification  of  his 
name,  ibid.  Doubt  as  to  his  re- 
puted blindness,  ibid. 

Hostility  to  poetry  among  the 
Greeks,  38. 

Horace,  remarks  on  the  genius  of 
his  works,  87. 

Human  mind,  the  changes  which 
it  has  undergone,  1.  Race,  their 
first  dispersion  and  settlement, 
107. 

Hume's  History  of  England,  re- 
marks on,  331. 

Hungarian  poets,  their  peculiari- 
ties, 2^.  Legends,  remarks  on, 
235. 


I. 


Iliad  and  Odyssey  compared  with 

the  poems  of  Ossian,  22. 
Immolation  of  widows,  123.  Causes 


which   originated   the   system, 
123. 
Importance  of  language  as  a  bond 

of  union,  7. 
India,  the  historical  works  of,  126. 
Monuments,  remarks  on,    127. 
Recluses  or  Gymnosophists,  129. 
The    religious    creed   of,    131. 
Their    representations    of   the 
Deity,  42.     The  heroic  poems 
of,  113.    Mythology  of,  its  high 
antiquity,    112.      Its    supposed 
origin,  124. 
Influence  of  Roman  dialects,  143. 
Of  a  dead  language,  162.     Of 
Greek  literature,  68,  compared 
with  Roman,  69. 
Italian  literature,  general  view  of, 

203.     Schools  of  painting,  215. 
Italy,    during   the    l6th  century, 

240. 
Introduction  to  Greek  literature,  73, 
Invention  of  printing,  &c.,   223. 
Of  Gunpowder,  224.    Of  paper, 
225. 


Job,  the  history  of.  111. 

Jones,    Sir  William,  translations 

of,  125.     Their  influence,  &c., 

340. 
Juvenal,  Satires  of,  88. 


K. 


Kant's  philosophy,  362.  Its  pecu- 
liarities, 374.  Its  defects  and 
injurious  influences,  375. 

Klopstock,  his  genius,  356.  The 
Messiad  a  commencement  of  a 
new  literature  in  Germany,  ibid. 
His  ideas  of  a  new  school  of 
poetry,  357.  His  poetic  style,  j 
358.    His  dramas,  379. 


L. 

Language  identical  with  thought, 
7.      Importance  as  a  bond  of 


INDEX. 


389 


y 


union,  ibid.  In  some  instances 
misdirected  and  abused,  8.  Its 
influence  and  peculiarities,  9. 
Upon  the  judgment,  10. 

La  Fontaine,  his  pecuUar  charm, 
322. 

Latin  language,  disadvantages 
from  its  too  great  use  in  the 
middle  ages,  163.  Its  adoption 
in  Germany,  216. 

Later  literature  of  the  Greeks,  29. 

Laura,  the,  of  Petrarch,  212. 

Lavater,  the  enquiries  of,  369. 

Lessing,  the  works  of,  361.  Re- 
marks on  him  as  a  critic,  367. 
His  enthusiasm,  &c.,  370. 

Literary  characters,  their  recipro- 
cal animosities,  &c.,  6.  Causes 
of  these,  ibid. 

Literature,  of  the  18th  century, 
the  changes  incident  to,  3.  Its 
revival  in  Europe,  4.  Female 
influence  in,  ihid.  Its  importance 
and  influence,  6.  Of  Greece 
and  Rome,  their  respective  cha- 
racteristics, 12.  Compared,  14. 
Remarks  on  the  same  at  a  later 
period,  29.  Of  the  north  and 
east  of  Europe,  226. 

Locke's  writings,  their  success  as 
compared  with  those  of  Bacon 
and  Hobbes,  313. 

Lope  de  Vega ,  the  dramatic  works 
of,  275.  His  genius  and  style, 
276.  ^ 

Lucretius,  the  genius  of,  77. 

Luther,  Martin,  the  tenets  of,  231. 
His  translation  of  the  Bible,  349. 
Influence  of  his  writings,  350. 
And  Melancthon,  their  pecuU- 
arities  of  style,  251. 


U. 

Machiavelli,  the  influence  of  his 
writings,  220.  His  erroneous 
opinions,  221.  Their  injurious 
eff'ects,  222. 

Manuscripts,  the  multiplication  of, 
165. 


Marco  Polo,  the  travels  of,  181. 

Men  of  letters  in  Germany,  their 
distinguishing  characteristics,  2. 
Their  tastes  and  habits  different 
from  those  of  the  common  peo- 
ple, 6.  Destructive  tendency  of 
this  to  the  national  character, 
ihid. 

Mental  refinement,  how  derived 
from  the  ancients,  12. 

Menander,  the  last  Athenian  poet, 
57. 

Metempsychosis,  the  doctrine  of, 
47.  Its  first  introduction  into 
Europe,  114.  Its  influence  on 
the  intellectual  character  of  the 
Europeans,  117.  Effects  of  its 
belief  in  India,  121. 

Middle  ages,  the,  160, 

Milan,  the  cathedral  of,  197. 

Modern  literature,  the  sources  of, 
142.  European  languages,  166. 
German  philosophy  contrasted 
with  that  of  the  middle  ages, 
247.  School  of  philosophy,  334. 
Peculiarities  of  its  writers,  335. 
Modern  German  poets,  377. 

Monk,  the  situation  of,  favourable 
for  literary  pursuits,  171. 

Mosaic  writings,  their  pecuUarities, 
108. 

MuUer,  superiority  of  his  genius, 

Mythology,  Greek,  the  deformities 
of,  42. 


N. 


National  character,  requisites  to 
the  formation  of,  4.  Poetry,  its 
elevating  tendency,  9.  History, 
philosophically  described,  10. 
Its  great  importance,  11.  Lan- 
guage, its  importance,  &c.,  236. 

Neibunr's  Roman  history,  71. 

New  Platonic  school  of  philoso- 
phy, 97.  Style  of  poetic  com- 
position in  Italy,  213. 

NovaUs'  views  of  German  philoso- 
phy, 376. 


390 


INDEX. 


O. 

Occult  sciences,  the,  in  Germany, 
246. 

Odin,  a  historical  personage,  151. 
The  poetical  legends  of,  152. 
Extinction  of  in  Saxony,  in  the 
age  of  Charlemagne,  154. 

Opitz  of  Silesia,  the  works  of,  352. 

Orations  of  Cicero,  the,  80.  Their 
influence  on  Roman  literature, 
81. 

Orpheus,  name  possibly  fabulous, 
39.  His  imputed  work,  ibid. 
contrasted  with  Homer,  40. 

Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  critical  re- 
marks on,  60. 


Painters  of  Germany — Holbein, 
All)ert  Durer,  &c.  238.  Effects 
of  the  reformation  on,  239, 

Pascal,  the  writings  of,  311.  His 
sophistry,  312. 

Peculiarities  of  heroic  poetry,  158. 

Period  of  German  refinement,  167. 
Compared  with  other  nations, 
168. 

Persian  literature,  its  rise  and  pro- 
gress, 190. 

Petrarch,  characteristics  of  his 
style,  212. 

Philosophy,  of  the  middle  age,  244. 
Of  the  period  previous  to  the 
reformation,  248.  Of  the  Aris- 
totelic,  249.  Of  the  15th  cen- 
tury, 250.  The  Platonic  sup- 
pressed, 254.  Of  the  17th  cen- 
tury, 299.  Of  the  elder  school 
of  Germany,  368.  Of  Germany 
of  the  present  time  and  its  fu- 
ture prospect,  376.  Of  Bacon, 
its  characteristics,  301.  Its  in- 
fluence, 302. 

Pindar,  the  writings  of,  24. 

Plato,  the  philosophy  of,  remarks 
on,  78.  His  pre-eminence  among 
the  Greeks,  54,  99. 

Plutarch  and  other  historians,  96. 
Poetical  wealth  of  the  Greeks,  161. 


Poetic  compositions,  remarks  on, 
78. 

Poetry  of  the  Greeks,  early  his- 
tory of,  11.  Hostility  to  it,  38. 
The  essential  attributes  of,  58. 
Its  decHne  in  Greece,  62.  The 
true  subjects  of,  79.  Its  present 
decline,  329.  Of  the  West,  186. 
Of  the  Germans,  192.  Of  Catho- 
lic countries,  255.  And  romance 
of  Spain,  268.  Dramatic  of 
Spain,  273. 

Poets,  their  ordinary  defects,  59. 
Ancient  and  modern,  285. 

Political  history  of  Greece,  15. 

Polish  language,  its  peculiarities, 
233. 

Polished  learning  of  the  Greeks, 
16. 

Process  of  the  Saracens,  180.  Of 
y)liilosophy  in  England,  France, 
&c.,  241.  Aristotle's  system, 
242.  Evils  of  the  Scholastic 
system,  243. 

Purity  of  the  Pioman  language, 
91. 


R. 

Refinement  and  learning  of  the 
Greeks,  16. 

Reformation,  the,  its  eflects  on  art, 
science,  and  literature,  239. 

Relation  of  Christianity  to  poetrj', 
208. 

Revival  of  Greek  philosophy,  55. 

Robertson's  historical  writings, 
331. 

Roman  literature  contrasted  with 
the  Greek,  Q)Q.  Errors  into 
which  it  has  fallen,  67.  Its  de- 
cline, &c.,  89.  lis  short  dura- 
tion, 92.  New  epoch  under 
Hadrian,  94.  Writers,  peculi- 
arities of,  67.  Paucity  of,  after 
the  time  of  Trajan,  94.  Great- 
ness, the  era  of,  72.  Gladiato- 
rial exhibitions,  their  coiTupting 
influence,  75.  Drama,  condi- 
tion of,  76.  Prose  writers  su- 
perior to  their  poets,  88.    Lau- 


INDEX. 


391 


miage,  the  age  of  its  purity,  91. 
Its  corruption  and  decline,  145. 
Jurisprudence,  its  first  develop- 
ment, 94. 

Romantic,  the  idea  of,  in  romances, 
271. 

Rosseau,  his  eloquence  and  im- 
petuosity, 318. 

Runic  alphabet  and  inscriptions, 
183.  ^ 


S. 


Sacred  Scriptures,  influence  of, 
206.  Their  peculiarities  of  style, 
112,207. 

St.  Martin  and  Bonard,  their  res- 
pective systems,  339. 

Sallust,  the  writings  of,  83. 

Saracens,  the  progress  of,  180. 

Satires,  the,  of  Juvenal,  88. 

Saturn,  or  Chronos,  the  fable  of, 
4. 

Scandinavian  remains,  155.  The- 
ology compared  with  that  of  the 
Greeks,  156. 

Scandinavians,  their  influence  in 
the  West,  230.  Their  Uterature, 
232. 

Sceptical  opinions  of  the  Greeks, 
48. 

Schiller,  scepticism  of,  373.  His 
dramas,  379,  his  philosophical 
works,  ibid. 

Shakespeare,  his  genius  and  pecu- 
liarities, 287.  Compared  with 
Milton,  288.  Opposition  he  en- 
countered, 289.  His  emulation 
and  imitation  of  Spenser,  295. 

Silesian  school,  its  effects  on  hter- 

ture,  354. 
Socrates,  the  age  of,  28.     His  te- 
nets, 49.  His  political  influence, 
50.     His  system  of  ethics,  101. 
Socratic   opinions,   the   rise    and 

progress  of,  51. 
Solon,  the  time  of,  the  proper  epoch 

of  Grecian  literature,  16. 
Sophists     and     philosophers     of 

Greece,  37. 
Sophocles,   characteristics   of  his  1 


writings,  27.  His  perfection  of 
Greek  tragedy,  28.  His  excel- 
lence as  a  philosopher  and  ora- 
tor, ibid. 

Spanish  literature,  its  advantages 
over  other  nations,  201,  259. 
Its  national  character,  258.  Bal- 
lads, remarks  on,  202.  Cultiva- 
tion and  refinement,  228,  Poe- 
try and  romance,  256.  Their 
characteristics,  257.  A  dano-er- 
ous  model  for  other  nations,  §70. 
Drama,  its  defects  for  theatrical 
representation,  283. 

Speech,  the  great  importance  of,  7. 

Study  of  magic  in  Germany,  245. 


T. 

Tasso,  the  genius  of,  262.  Re- 
marks on  his  style,  263,  Com- 
pared with  Dante,  264, 

Teutonic  poetry,  remarks  on,  157. 
Tribes,  their  peculiarities,  &c., 
174.  Philosophy,  the,  253,  357. 
Jacob  Böhme,  ibid. 

Theocritus,  the  Idylls  of,  61. 

Theodoric  the  Goth,  the  ao-e  of 
146.  °       ' 

Theogeny,  the,  of  Hesiod,  remarks 
on,  39.  Compared  with  the 
writings  of  Homer,  40. 

Thirty  years'  war,  the,  its  injuri- 
ous effects  on  literature,  352. 

Thucydides,  as  an  historian,  30, 
political  institutions  of  his  time, 
3l,     Of  his  style,  iJnd. 

Tragedies,  modern,  compared  with 
those  of  the  ancients,  281. 

Troubadours,  the  age  of,  199. 


U. 

Unlearned  philosophers,  remarks 
upon,  252. 


View  of  German  literature,  193. 


392 


INDEX- 


Virgil's  Mneid,  remarks  on,  85. 
Its  characteristic  defects,  86. 

Voltaire,  the  philosophy  of,  314. 
His  influence  on  English  writ- 
ers, 316.  IJis  opinions  of  the 
French,  317.  Compared  with 
Rosseau,  Diderot,  &c.,  325, 


W. 

War,  its  influence  on  Grecian 
literature,  16. 

Weiland,  remarks  on  his  philo- 
sophical system,  360. 


Winklemann,  the  writings  of,  361. 
Women,    their    social    condition 

among  the  Greeks,  33. 
Works,  nistorical,  of  the  Germans, 

during  the  18th  century,  2.    Of 

Virgil,  remarks  on,  85. 
Writers  of  Greece  compared  with 

those  of  Rome  and  Egypt,  13. 
Writings  of  Caesar  compared  with 

those  of  Sallust,  83. 


Xenophon,  remarks  on,  as  a  writer 
of  history,  52.  His  Cyropajdia,  53. 


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